


an isle unto thyself

by hilarions



Series: a reverie endeavor [1]
Category: D.Gray-man
Genre: Big Bang Challenge, Curse of Obedience, Howl's Moving Castle AU, M/M, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-01
Updated: 2018-09-08
Packaged: 2019-07-05 15:31:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 105,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15866487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hilarions/pseuds/hilarions
Summary: With nowhere to go, no-one to help, and no-one to trust, Howard Link found himself chasing the dark, foreboding smudge of the wizard Joyd's castle as it meandered, huffing and creaking, along the mountain ridges that enfolded the Folding Valley.Chances were he'd have his heart stolen and devoured by the monster inside - but without the help of someone who knew magic intimately, and commanded it well enough to lift the curse which had so quickly taken to ruining Link's life, chances were there were worse fates awaiting him.





	1. Chapter 1

It hadn’t exactly been an exhausting day, but Tyki found he was exhausted by the end of it. It wasn’t as though there’d been a multitude of people knocking on the Kingsbury and Porthaven doors, but he supposed that was his curse; to be frustratedly bitter when people paid to have him help them, and unbearably bored when they didn’t. 

He was halfway through his first drink when he considered that, and considered too that it was mighty unfair, and possibly the worst curse to live with. Part of him felt he ought to try doing something about it - make some sort of spell to mend his ennui. But those kinds of curses were the sort you had from birth, and there was really nothing magical about them. 

They just were, and they just sucked. 

As it was, Tyki supposed that his uninspired day had left him quite bored, and out of habit his eyes fell on the only thing of any real interest in the dusty, dirty living room, piled high with books and junk and ash that had lifted from the open hearth fireplace. 

Allen; a centerpiece. 

Really, he was magnificent. Flame-licked body as white as a star, and as brilliant as one too when he was awake. Flickers of red and yellow and blue danced beneath his skin, and his shoulders rippled and wavered with licks of orange fire, just about too close to sleep to hold that boy-like shape. 

For as strange as Allen was, it was difficult to compliment him. For all that he projected a human-like form, he very clearly wasn’t human. And for all that he was brilliant and mesmerizing and beautiful, it was in such a strangely esoteric way that, though Tyki would doubt anyone to find him anything  _ but  _ beautiful, there was certainly a sense of unreality about watching him. 

A gut feeling, or an earthly instinct, that told whoever saw him that he wasn’t born from the land or sea. 

Celestial.

But Tyki was probably a bit too sour over his own mood to be quite of a mind for compliments - as convoluted as they might be, regarding something like Allen. 

So what came out of his mouth, rather than  _ I don’t think there’s a creature on this earth who wouldn’t find you beautiful,  _ was, “You’re a bit weird, don’t you think?”

Allen sucked in a deep breath, flames flaring brighter for a moment before it all huffed out in a long-winded sigh, the outline of his body dancing ragged flickers of put-upon exhaustion. “We’ve been stuck like this for twenty-three years,” he said, tired and dull and bored already with whatever Tyki was working up to, “and you only ever start talking like that when you’re upset over something stupid.”

“You’re all…” Tyki gestured vaguely to Allen with his glass, pointedly ignoring whatever he said, and enunciated  _ “poof.  _ Fire.”

Allen looked thoroughly unimpressed. “You’re awfully observant tonight.”

“Don’t you think that’s weird?” Tyki asked, leaning forwards with his elbows propped on his knees as though Allen’s nature deeply vexed him.

“The…” Allen started, deep-seated confusion flickering across his delicate brow. “The fact that I’m a fire demon?”

“The fact that you  _ are fire,”  _ Tyki stressed his correction. “I mean,” he reasoned, settling back in his chair and drinking from his glass, “you don’t  _ look  _ like a fire. Not really.”

Allen’s lips pulled into a tight, exasperated smile and he asked, “Well, what’s a fire  _ supposed  _ to look like?”

Tyki rested the lip of his glass against his chin and drew his eyes over Allen’s mercurial flames, considering that. “I don’t think it tends to care, really,” he decided.

“Well,” Allen sniffed, and dragged a charred log onto his lap so he could drape his arms around it and hold it to his chest, “I do.”

“So,” Tyki reasoned, “is it strange that you’re a fire, or that you’re a fire which cares what he looks like?”

Allen gave him a sour look and rested his chin on the end of the log, stretched out an elegant leg so his heel hung over the edge of the hearth, little flame-toes flickering. “You’re the only one who seems to think it’s strange at all,” he said, and as there was no third party for them to get a deciding vote from, Tyki figured all he could do in response was down what remained of his whiskey and think about what he could say to prove his case.

It wasn’t much later in the evening, while Tyki was pouring his second drink, that he realised he’d left the door to the moors unlocked. 

He eyed it from across the living room, blinked at it slowly, and wondered if he was willing to sacrifice the comfort of having his feet up to the effort of locking a door no-one knocked at anyway. 

Slowly, with altogether too much effort, he dragged his gaze to where Allen was burning low on the hearth, flickering with quiet, warm yellow flames that told Tyki he was on the verge of sleep. 

“Would you lock the door for me?” Tyki said.

Allen mumbled through an uninvested response before pulling in a deep breath with the effort of waking himself up, his body filling out, his flames steadying into a sleepy, bemused sort of expression. “Sorry?” he asked, blinking heavy eyes at Tyki.

“The door,” he repeated, and gestured to it.

Allen glanced at the door, and then back to Tyki. His brow rippled with a frown, confusion palpable. 

“Could you lock it for me,” Tyki requested, less a question this time. 

Allen’s blink was slow and weary, and completely devoid of understanding. “Could you lock it yourself?” he countered.

Tyki looked at the door. “I suppose I  _ could,”  _ he allowed. “But I did ask you to do it.”

The sour look Allen gave him said a lot. “You’re so  _ lazy,”  _ was all he said before closing his eyes and flickering to simmer back down into his coals. 

“So that’s a ‘no’ on the door?” Tyki asked, quite pointlessly. 

A log popped and settled, and Tyki sighed into his drink. 

“Thanks,” he muttered, facetious, his breath fanning ripples across the whiskey.

He got all of halfway through savouring the the first sip of his second drink when the door he hadn’t bothered to get up and lock blew open onto the gusty moors, the grass slipping past as the castle meandered along in the dark, every beat of its clockwork body powered by the ifrit sulking low in his ashes. 

Tyki got all of halfway through pushing himself to stand, finally with the intention of closing that door for the way it was swinging on its hinges and letting in all the unpleasant weather, when a pair of hands managed to grasp the lip of the threshold. Two hands, which were quickly followed by an elbow, and then a head (bearing quite the frustrated huff of a face), and then a knee, and then another. 

Before too long, there was a whole person climbing in through Tyki’s door from the moors, and he was standing quite dumbly in the mess of his living room with absolutely no clue what to make of it. 

The person - a boy, Tyki supposed, or a man, or something in between - straightened himself and brushed his hands off on his pants before pulling his fingers through his windblown fringe and flicking a tidy golden braid over his shoulder. Once that was taken care of, he forced out a short breath and glanced around at where he’d found himself. 

He seemed, almost pointedly, to take no notice of Tyki.

Tyki thought he was very righteous in the offence he took to that, considering this boy had just run through the moors after  _ his  _ castle, and climbed through  _ his  _ door, and now stood on  _ his  _ threshold without so much as a word of greeting. 

“Would you get the door?” Allen asked from the fireplace. 

The boy jumped, seemed almost shocked out of his wordless stupor. He looked right at Allen, who was laying across the hearth with his legs crossed in the air behind him, chin resting on the arms he had folded cutely over the burning log he’d been resting on. Allen shot the boy a sweet, coy smile, and Tyki, in all his narrow-eyed certainty, knew it was only for his benefit. 

“Oh,” was the first thing he said, followed by a surprised, uncertain blink. Like he wasn’t quite sure what he’d expected, but that a fire demon lounging across the hearth probably wasn’t it. “Sure,” was what he said next, and he sounded so wonderfully mild and agreeable that Tyki was finding himself more irked by the second. 

In a moment the door was closed, and the boy was stepping into the living room as though he’d been invited. 

Tyki was less than pleased. 

“How did you get in here?” he demanded, furrowing his brows with the most threatening scowl he could muster.

The boy seemed to look at him for the first time, and Tyki found he was even more bothered that he didn’t look surprised to see him. “Through the back door,” he answered simply, and gestured to the door he had very obviously just climbed through. 

“That’s the front door,” Allen corrected from the hearth.

The boy frowned. “It was at the back of the castle,” he reasoned, very reasonably indeed.

“What,” Tyki bit out behind his scowl, dipping it to sit more heavily between his brows, “are you  _ doing  _ here?”

That, the boy seemed to answer a touch less readily. 

Which is to say, he glanced from Tyki, to Allen, to his feet, then clenched his jaw. 

Tyki arched a brow. 

Allen tilted his head, expectant. 

“I need,” the boy started to say, and then stopped. He scowled at his feet, and then set that scowl at Tyki, as though it was somehow  _ his  _ fault that he needed something. “I need help,” he admitted at length, and seemed wonderfully unhappy about the whole thing. 

Tyki blinked at him, and let that admission stretch out across the silence of the room. “Pardon?” he said at length, when he could see petty frustration simmering in the way he clenched his fingers.

“He needs help,” Allen said from the fireplace with an unsubtle roll of his eyes. “Weren’t you listening?”

“What…” Tyki started to say, and glanced around the mess of the living room as though trying to decide if there was something he ought to be doing at this point. He sold cures and spells and hexes, of course, but none of his customers came from the moors, and certainly none of them broke into his castle and refused even the most simple of greetings. Tyki hadn’t even heard a ‘good evening’, he realised, and decided he had every right to finish that first sip of whiskey this boy had so rudely interrupted. “What with?”

“You...” the boy started, and Tyki found himself arching an incredulous brow at such an answer.

“Me,” he clarified, and the look on the boy’s face told him he was absolutely wrong. 

Allen was muffling his laughter into his log, and Tyki felt compelled to roll his eyes at his demon.

“You _are,”_ the boy stressed emphatically, chest rising in affront, “the wizard Joyd. I presume,” he tacked on like an allowance. An unwarranted pleasantry.

Unwarranted, indeed.

Tyki found it in him to scoff. “Have you heard of any _other_ wizards that roam around in enormous, moving castles?”

The boy, bless his incongruous heart, cast a scathing glance around the filthy lounge room, and the large hearth piled so high with ash that Allen almost had to peek between mountains to see him. “Well,” he offered diplomatically - or, rather undiplomatically, Tyki considered with a scowl, “the term _castle_ is somewhat generous. But,” he admitted, with as much deferral as his pride seemed to allow, “no.”

“And  _ who _ **,”** Tyki stressed, not melted by the boy’s uninspired attempt at placating his frustration - which had been growing quite remarkably since the point at which the door had swung open, “are  _ you?” _

“I’m,” the boy started to say, and then stopped. “Well,” he demurred, and took all of half a step back. “Well, I'm Link.”

“Ah,” Tyki considered, skepticism mulled over his glass, “yes. A name that means nothing to me.”

Link seemed quite more prepared to demure this time, considering his recent practice at it. “That’s only to be expected,” he allowed, and Tyki let himself arch the scathing brow which was so begging to be arched. “I’m nobody,” Link said as though he believed it, “really.”

“Well,” Tyki sniffed and paced carefully towards him, eyes running over his almost-ill-fitting clothes, the grass stains on his pants and the dirt that clung to his shoes, “considering the fact you quite cheerfully just broke into a wizard’s home,” he said, and reached out as though to pinch at the worn collar of Link’s shirt, the gesture aborted by the way Link smacked his hand away and took a cautious, surreptitious step back from him. “I’d say you’re clearly _somebody_ ,” Tyki finished, a taunting kind of grin curling in the corners of his lips.

Link looked ill at ease, and shifted uncomfortably as though he might very much like to take another step back. Tyki took advantage of his silence to chase his curiosities with another long pull of whiskey.

“Now,” he announced, following that step Link had taken with a narrow look in his eyes, “what sort of catastrophe, exactly, drives a person to steal off into the night and break into my home?”

“I have a,” Link started, then cut himself off quite abruptly. “I’m,” he tried again, words chosen with delicate care, “under a curse.”

“A curse?” Tyki repeated, and cast a shrewd glance over him.

He wasn’t bad to look at - not at all. If Tyki was in a better mood, he might’ve even deigned to call Link  _ pretty.  _ His profile a fascinating juxtaposition between severity and delicacy, soft youth and new maturity, that Tyki put him at twenty years, no older. Beneath his stern, manicured browline was a dignified nose and a rather pleasant pair of lips, though Tyki wasn’t quite of a mind to admire them. 

Link was, after all, still tracking mud all over the drab carpet, the vibrant patterns of the wool long since faded to the grey of ash and dust. 

By all rights, Tyki shouldn’t have been concerned about the rug.

By all rights, he felt he was entitled to be offended about whatever he pleased. 

“You don’t _look_ cursed,” he observed, dry with skepticism.

“Well,” Link reasoned, stiff, “it’s not that kind of curse.”

“Not that kind of curse,” Tyki repeated, and found he was quite uninterested in what kind of curse it  _ was _ .

“Yes,” was all Link said.

Well. Tyki had never met anyone who was quite so averse to helping someone help them - not that Tyki had any intention of helping him, that is. And on the matter of his interest, well. This boy seemed interested in being difficult simply for the sake of being difficult, and Tyki ought to have Allen drop him off at the nearest rocky outcrop and be done with it.

“Will you tell me,” he drawled against his better judgement, crowding Link with another step forwards, his expression settled deep into something severely unimpressed, “what the curse is?”

“No,” he said with a cautious step back.

Wonderful. “You’re not making this simple, are you?”

Link had the grace to look a little bit sheepish. “I suppose not.”

Mulling it over with a frown, Tyki asked, “Are you cursed to not tell me about the curse?”

“Oh, no,” Link waved his hand before his face, shaking his head to reassure - if reassure was quite the right word, “no, nothing like that.”

Allen snickered a laugh at the way Tyki closed his eyes against the impending headache this ridiculous, unapologetic boy promised, and a small cloud of ash puffed up into the air to swirl and settle slowly on their skin and in their hair when he buried his face in a large pile of it to smother his own amusement.

“So,” Tyki summarised briefly, his expression and voice both dripping with how absolutely thrilled he was that this convoluted conundrum had decided to step in on him that evening, “you’re just being difficult.”

“I’m being _cautious_ ,” Link stressed, and from the careful way he spoke and the careful way he pinched his brows and the careful way his fingers folded over the hem of what looked like a borrowed shirt, Tyki could infer that caution was perhaps a very reasonable trait for a very reasonable person, and he’d very much have liked to have a very reasonable conversation with Link had he come to Tyki’s house at a reasonable hour, in a reasonable manner, with a reasonable request.

“That’s what I said,” Tyki agreed, facetious and understandably unreasonable. “Difficult.” 

Allen’s unabating amusement was starting to prickle under Tyki’s skin, and he shot a narrow-eyed glare to the fire laying across his hearth, kicking his heels with barely-stifled mirth.

“Did you let him in?” he demanded, because it seemed quite Allen’s style to make something like this happen, should his boredom come down to it. 

Of course, Tyki didn’t believe Allen could manifest a whole human with a whole purse full of problems for Tyki to headache over, but there was always the chance that he’d simply happened to drive their castle into this exact place at this exact moment with the intention of letting this exact headache painstakingly drop his purse all over their dusty rug. 

Allen’s coy little smile told Tyki absolutely nothing. “Did you see me getting off this hearth to open the door?” he countered, as prim and frustrating as ever.

Tyki huffed a sharp sigh through his nose and turned that glare to Link. “Well,” he stated, stern and quite officially out of patience with this whole thing, “I’m afraid I don’t have any spells lying around to lift ambiguous curses, or to charm the dumb into speaking, so I suppose we have no business.”

“Oh, Tyki,” Allen snorted, amused, “you have charm by the bucketful hanging around here somewhere, but it looks as though you’ve misplaced it.”

Tyki ignored both his teasing commentary and the affronted, offended look on Link’s face and waved his hand as though to shoo him away. “Your whole predicament holds no weight on me, so go ahead and tumble back where you came from.”

And Link, well.

His expression fractured and flashed - something like dread, or maybe even terror seemed to fill him to the brim. But before Tyki could so much as arch an unconcerned brow, he had twisted on his heel in a whirl of jagged movement, and something about the way that lovely golden braid swung against his back hit Tyki hard and fast in the gut with a rush of brutal familiarity and a desperation to make him stay.

Plait like a cat’s tail curling just out of reach, in a childhood dream he thought he’d forgotten.

Fingers gone numb, all the way up his arm, Tyki nearly dropped his glass when he demanded, sudden and abrupt and what he would deny as desperate, **“** _Wait!_ Wait, stop, don’t. Don’t go.”

Like a puppet on strings Link jerked to a halt, hand curled around the doorknob, his shoulders wound tight like he was waiting for something horribly unpleasant - or perhaps already enduring it.

“Why did you come… here?” he asked, unsure of how to phrase something he didn’t quite understand.

Link glanced over his shoulder, cautious, hesitant. Suspicious. 

Nervous.

His tongue swiped across his lower lip and he glanced first at Allen, and then at the doorknob beneath his hand. His shoulders tightened with how he held back a shudder, and those sharp, dark eyes of his darted back to Tyki. 

“It certainly wasn’t my  _ first _ choice,” he said, sounding so propper in his grudging admission. “But I’ve spoken to all the witches I knew of on the moors, and even some I didn’t, and none of them could help me.”

Tyki scowled a frown and glanced down at Link’s muddy shoes. “How did you  _ get  _ here?”

“I,” he started, and then stopped. Turned slowly and pressed his back to the door, hands laying flush against the wood. “I ran,” he said, and seemed to wince at how that sounded. “I  _ walked _ **,”** he corrected, as though he were reasonable even in the recounting of himself. “From the town down in the valley - from Market Chipping.”

Like Tyki was the last chance he had, and he was just desperate enough to take it.

Allen flickered low between his charcoal logs, made himself burn small and quiet, watching them with careful eyes. He didn’t know _what_ Tyki knew, but Tyki could tell Allen knew he knew something. “We’re a whole day’s walk away,” Allen said, a somehow unobtrusive comment.

“I didn’t say it was a particularly _pleasant_ walk,” Link commented, delicate even in the way his frustration simmered. 

Tyki hummed a long, considering, quite unhappy sigh and let himself think about that. “Tell me about the curse, then,” he said, and tilted his head back to take a long, considering, quite unhappy drink from his glass.

“I was working,” Link started without any of the particular care he tended to speak with, like words ripped from his lips, “in the bakery, in Cesari’s. And - well, it’s not the _first_ time it’s happened, but - _no,”_ he bit back his words and pinched the bridge of his nose with a pained, frustrated scowl. “ _Obedience_ ,” he gritted, as pained as pulling teeth, and the tight strain of his shoulders loosened a moment later, as though he was no longer being prodded with a hot iron. The glare he levelled at Tyki, however, was anything but happy. “I’m cursed with _obedience_ ,” he said, and looked rather mad about it, “thanks for _asking_.”

“What, like,” he paused, pulled back a touch to frown. “Like,  _ total  _ obedience?”

A muscle in Link’s jaw jumped in nervous frustration.

Tyki decided to clarify, “Were you really about to jump out the door and do tumble rolls all the way down the moors?” At Link’s stubborn silence, he entreated, “This  _ is  _ relevant to fixing it, you know.”

_ “Yes,”  _ he bit out, sharp frustration and bitter embarrassment, anger written in the wrinkle of his glare, “and I’d ask you to refrain from any commands that would send me back there.”

Tyki gave a low whistle and looked Link up and down once more. “Someone must really hate you, kid.”

“Or something,” Link muttered on a breath, eyes skating away across the dusty rug. 

Tyki didn’t know what it was, what that shot of familiarity had been, or why it was important. But it was. He knew that at least. And as much as he might be tempted to command Link to let the door hit him on the way out… As ridiculous as his arrival, and as ridiculous as his demand, Tyki wouldn’t recognise a man he’d never met if it weren’t for good reason.

Link, well. Link didn’t seem to know the slightest thing about Tyki. 

Knew he was a wizard, and knew him as Joyd, and surely if that was the case then he knew the reputation Tyki had fostered for himself in the provincial country towns whose far-flung outskirts his castle tended to meander around.

Allen liked the grassy knolls of the moors, he’d said. They were pleasant to walk up, and fun to trot down, and the villagers were wonderfully terrified of him.

Or,  _ should  _ have been. 

But there Link was, back still pressed to the door, scowling righteous fury at Tyki. That was surely something worth looking into. If his reputation had gone good, he’d certainly have to do something about it. 

Tyki pressed his luck, stepped closer. Link pushed himself further against the door, chin tilting like he’d very much like to turn his back and tumble down the moors after all. 

“Aren’t you afraid?” he asked, voice curling low in a taunt, loving the way Link’s jaw clenched nervously. “Obedience - that’s a worry. And I’m not exactly the nicest guy around,” Tyki reasoned, mouth pitched into a grin. 

Link’s tight lips refused to say a word, and Tyki tilted his head in a mocking gesture of inquiry. Stepped closer, too close in Link’s space. 

“With a curse like that,” he considered in a charmed murmur, “I could have plenty of fun with your heart before I eat it.”

“Yes,” Allen agreed, his severity completely undermined by the amusement laced through his voice, “you don’t want a monster like him to get you. I mean,” he reasoned, dry, “look what happened to me,” he finished with a grand gesture to his filthy, ashy hearth. 

“Demons,” Link said, and then stopped. Dark eyes darted to Allen, and then back to Tyki. “Demons don’t have hearts,” he said, his intense stare unwavering from Tyki’s face. 

The stare might have been born of fear, but Tyki was finding himself a touch unnerved. He chalked it up to the strange colour of them. Irises dark enough to look black from a distance, but the light from Allen’s fire lit them such a tone of red-brown that they almost reminded Tyki of dried blood. 

“I’ll have you know,” Allen sniffed from the fireplace, haughty in his put-upon offence, “I have a very lovely heart indeed.”

“Oh,” Tyki huffed, and waved a hand as though to disregard Allen’s theatrics, “don’t talk it up too much. It’s nothing special.”

“Well,” Link said, clipped, still watching Tyki with those eyes of his, “I figure I’m safe. You only eat the hearts of pretty young boys, after all.”

Tyki’s eyes narrowed in a challenging, scathing response, and let his gaze dart around Link’s remarkably composed face before dragging down his body. Taking it in, this time, with a vapid distaste for Link’s comment. “Looked in the mirror lately?” he asked at length, once Link was squirming in his judging silence. An arched brow directed at the confusion that flitted across his admittedly very pretty (if stern, and somewhat intense) face. 

Link’s jaw locked again, and Tyki caught the way his throat moved when he swallowed. Cheek turned, eyes on the rug beneath their feet. “I meant,” he said, stiff and quite uncertain of what to make of Tyki’s comment, “to say, that I’m hardly a boy.”

Tyki tilted his head, let his lips melt into a teasing smile. “You look like a boy to me.”

“I’m a  _ man,”  _ Link corrected, eyes flashing in a stern, offended glare, “thank you.”

Tyki ducked his head on half a laugh and asked, “How old are you, exactly?”

Link’s lips pressed tight in hesitant frustration for a moment before he admitted with the air of someone who knows they’re about to be laughed at, “Nineteen.”

And, well. Tyki was all about filling expectations - when it came to nineteen-year-old boys claiming to be men, at least. Link, when Tyki covered his own mouth with the back of his wrist to smother his snicker, nose scrunching a little in his amusement, looked righteously offended, righteously embarrassed, and not surprised in the least.

“I take it back, then,” Tyki allowed through his laughter, turning and leaving Link where he was, pressed tight against the door, “my apologies. You’re not a boy,” he agreed, and plucked a log from the pile as the passed to toss it onto Allen’s hearth. “You’re a  _ child,”  _ he corrected himself, far too amused, as the log rippled through Allen’s insubstantial chest to land amongst the ashes behind him. “A squalling infant. Maybe you should run along before your parents worry, Link,” he said, threw a taunting grin over his shoulder and took lax, easy steps across the cluttered room back to his poor abandoned armchair. 

After a moment he shot Link a quick glance and corrected, “Don’t, though. I’ve decided I’d like do your… curse thing,” he said, with a vague gesture to Link as a whole. With a teasing grin, kicking his feet up once more, Tyki reasoned, “Don’t want a slip of the tongue driving you away.”

Slowly, carefully peeling himself away from the door, Link scowled and said, “Telling me I  _ should  _ do something isn’t the same as telling me  _ to  _ do something.”

“Valuable information,” Tyki noded, expression dipping into stern consideration, “which will go towards making a cure, rest assured. Regardless,” he said, dropping that mockery of professionalism, “I don’t work for free, you know,” he admitted, and threw back the last of his whiskey.

“Gotta sustain that drinking problem  _ somehow,”  _ Allen muttered from the hearth, where he was rearranging his logs such that he could flicker down between them, his delicate, ethereal form slipping and rippling to shrink down into something almost flamelike. The warm orange glow of the room dimmed a touch, Allen over the excitement.

Link hesitated, didn’t step further into the room, defeated in the slump of his shoulders. “I don’t have any money,” he said, something like distress pinching at his brow. “I left… quite abruptly.”

Tyki’s eyes narrowed suspicion and he demanded, “You weren’t ordered to come here, were you?”

Grudging, lips twisting like saying it prickled his skin, Link reasoned, “You could order me to tell the truth, if you really think that.”

Tyki’s eyes flickered across Link’s stern face, frowning in his determination to be earnest. Let his glance fall away with a lazy shrug. “I’d dare you to try me, if that didn’t mean you would. If you need to pay,” he said, and dragged a finger through the air to pull an old armchair out from the clutter that had piled up in the room and settled it across from his own, “you can make yourself useful. I’m sure you’ll find something to do around here,” he reasoned, and cast an unconcerned glance up at the rafters, dripping with ageless cobwebs.

Link, when he followed Tyki’s eyes, seemed to force back a shudder. 

“There’s plenty to do,” Allen muttered from between his logs, getting lippy from the fireplace, “considering you don’t do  _ anything,”  _ he said, a scowl flickered at Tyki.

“Alright, princess,” Tyki snorted, vaguely amused. “I’d like to see  _ you  _ pay two lots of rent.”

“I’d like to see you walk a huge, hulking castle around the moors on chicken legs,” Allen countered, his flames flaring in a huff. 

_ “Oh,”  _ Tyki perked up, definitely amused this time. “Quick, before I forget. Do you think there’s anything strange about him?” he asked of Link, pointing quite obviously to Allen, who had pushed himself up out from between his logs in a huff.

Link glanced from Tyki’s finger to the scowling demon in the fireplace, and looked as though he wasn’t at all prepared for a question like that. Wide-eyed, as though he couldn’t quite tell who he was meant to side with regarding an argument he hadn’t been involved in. 

After a long moment he clarified, “About… the fact he’s a fire? Or,” he hesitated, wary eyes flicking to Allen for a moment and then away, “the fact he’s naked?”

“Have  _ you  _ ever tried putting clothes on a six hundred degree flame?” Allen scowled, definitely sulking now.

Ignoring him, Tyki asked, smug as anything, “Which is more strange to you?”

Link took his time answering again, glancing between the two of them as though he was trying very hard to find the right answer. “The fact he’s a fire” he said at length, and settled on Allen with a deeply assured frown on his face. “That is to say,” he reasoned, that reasonable nature of his shining through, “being a fire seems to negate the peculiarity of his nudity. That he’s a fire, sitting there as a boy?” he pointed out with a small, delicate shrug. “There’s nothing to explain that away.”

“Told you it was weird,” Tyki smirked against the rim of his empty glass.

“Stop picking on me,” Allen harrumphed, incensed burgundy rolling through his flames, and settled back with an irate scowl.

But, won arguments aside, it wasn’t about the money. It wasn’t about two lots or rent, or the amount of whiskey Tyki drank. If it came down to it - and it did, in a manner of speaking - Tyki would lift Link’s curse for free. Not that he was given to doing  _ anything  _ for free, but he needed Link to stay. 

It was important - it was  _ important.  _ Tyki just didn’t know why.

Not yet.

“Pull up a chair,” he instructed, lazy eyes on Link while he kicked his feet up on the spindly repurposed end table and reached to catch the bottle of whiskey between his fingers, “and tell me about this curse. For starters,” he amended, dry, when he saw Link take quick, sharp steps across the room and sit firmly in the armchair Tyki had dragged from the clutter, “we should probably talk semantics.”

Link pressed his lips tight and narrow, and nodded shortly. “That would be  _ ideal,”  _ he said, unamused at the way Tyki’s silent laughter rippled across his face. “It’s quite straightforward, really,” he announced, stiff and reprimanding while Tyki indulged in pulling the cork from the bottle and pouring two fingers into his glass. “If you tell me to do something, I’ll have no choice but to do it.”

_ “Sorry,”  _ Tyki indulged through his amusement, putting the bottle back. “I wasn’t considering turn of phrase, right then.”

“Perhaps you should start,” Link suggested, arch and stern. 

“Cross my heart,” Tyki mocked, drawing a sardonic cross over his still chest, “I’ll try be mindful.”

 

* * *

 

The wizard Joyd - or,  _ Tyki,  _ as the fire on the hearth called him in exasperation - did not keep Link long, that evening. He asked a few ambiguous questions while he drank what looked like whiskey but could have been anything, and Link certainly tried his best to answer them. But he’d been walking the moors since before sunrise, and the night he’d run from still clung like wraiths of subdued panic to his shoulders. 

He was exhausted, and he was stressed, and all he’d eaten was a little bread and cheese that one of the country witches had been kind enough to offer him, along with a set of too-large clothes which had belonged to her son or nephew or cousin - or perhaps all of them, at some point, for how tattered and worn they were. But rolled cuffs and a too-large shirt was still better than grass-stained pyjamas.

Link didn’t know if Joyd could tell through the intent expression and upright posture Link insisted on keeping, but he was a wizard after all. 

Their conversation ended with Link crushing a yawn behind his locked teeth, Joyd throwing back the second half his drink in one hit, then pushing to stand and telling him without so much as a formal invitation that there was a spare bedroom upstairs and he was welcome to use the bath, courtesy of Allen -  _ Allen.  _ Allen the fire demon.

Just… Allen.

Link wasn’t sure, exactly, why it was that blasé name given to that fantastic creature which finally ruptured the shroud of normalcy he’d been pulling over his eyes.

Joyd had slipped up the stairs without much to say after that but for a passing, “I’m sleeping in,” thrown over his shoulder at the fire. 

All Link’s breath fell out of him in a steady stream once he heard a door close up the stairs, and he let his shoulders slump until his head was resting on his knees. 

“I don’t think I’m quite alright,” was what he ended up saying to them.

“I think you’re fine,” the fire countered, and sounded very much like it was giving Link a gentle smile. 

He glanced up a touch - just enough to peek at it from under his brow. 

There was, in fact, a gentle smile on its face, and it sat watching Link with its chin resting on its arms, folded over one of the cracked, blackened logs. It still burned white and somehow every colour at the same time, but it felt very  _ yellow.  _ Warm and comforting as honey in tea. 

“You wouldn’t know,” Link reasoned simply. “You’ve only known me ten minutes.”

“A half hour,” the demon corrected, and tilted its head to rest its cheek on its arms, eyes burning low and sleepy with comfort. “I think that’s plenty, to figure out how fine someone is.”

“Maybe I’m very good at pretending,” Link countered, folding his arms and resting them on his knees, watching the pretty flames dance and flicker. “Or maybe you’re very bad at reading people.”

“I’m very good at reading hearts, actually,” the fire said, solemn if not for the smile still teasing at the corners of his lips. “You might call me an expert.”

“I don’t see what my heart’s got to do with this,” Link insisted, and wondered when his world had turned so upside down, that he would be sitting in the wizard Joyd’s castle discussing his own heart with a demon in a fireplace. 

“It’s got a lot,” Allen said, smile turning coy, or something like teasing, “don’t you think? After all,” he reasoned, settling low in his sleepy satisfaction, “your heart’s the only thing about you that’s not cursed.”

Link’s eyes narrowed suspicion. “How would you know?” he asked, fingers curling around his biceps. 

Allen smiled and shook his head, eyes falling closed like feathers. “I can tell,” was all he said, and it sounded vaguely like a shrug. Magic, Link supposed. Demon magic, or fire magic, or maybe it was just  _ Allen.  _ He didn’t open his eyes, and he seemed to flicker low and settle deeper amongst his logs and ash. “You wouldn’t be here if your heart was cursed.”

Link swallowed, nervous and sick. Looked down at his mud-encrusted shoes. “I suppose that’s true,” he said, quiet into the silent house. 

Through a yawn, Allen mumbled, “Water’s hot, if you want a bath,” and flickered down, low and small, to crawl beneath one of the logs and sleep. 

The room was lit only by the coals he’d left behind, and Link took his time gathering up the last of his strength to haul himself to his feet and tromp slowly up the stairs. It was on the landing that he found he didn’t quite know where to go, but he supposed it wouldn’t be too hard to piece together. 

The hallway was dark and as hung with cobwebs as the living room had been, and the door to his left looked as though it hadn’t been opened in years. The one at the end of the hall had a light on, and when Link knocked cautiously to no answer, he found a bathroom filthy with stains and half-empty bottles, and the steaming water that sat in the tub smelled intoxicatingly wonderful.

Almost before he’d remembered to close the door behind him, Link was pulling the borrowed shirt over his head, toeing off his filthy shoes and slipping out of the pants, rolled waist dropping heavily down his legs. He dipped his fingers in the water and found it wonderfully warm - if a little bit hot. But that wasn’t something he should bemoan, he supposed, as he sank first one leg into the water, and then the other, the smell of the pale pink steam enough to make his mouth water.

Before long he was stretched out as far as he could go, his head tilted back over the edge of the tub and his rosy knees poking out of the water. Luxuriant, and absolutely  _ thrilled.  _

God, if he’d ever felt so good, he’d never felt so good about feeling so good. The dirt from the moors and the sweat from his travels and the growing horrors of the past two weeks all seemed to melt into the hot water around him, smelling first of rose, then of guava, then of peaches and plums. 

He very well almost fell asleep in that bath - and he very well might have, for a minute or two. The water never got cool, and the longer he soaked the better he felt, until he was sure he was quite alright enough to sit forwards and untie his hair, pull it loose from its braid and dunk his head under the sweet water. 

Eyes scrunched closed, Link blew all the air in his lungs out his nose before coming up with a measured, relieved sigh. 

There were - god, there were so many  _ bottles.  _ Link peered at peeling labels and surreptitiously sniffed beneath lids, and once he’d decided he’d found a shampoo that wouldn’t turn his hair blue, he poured a healthy handful into his palm and massaged it into his scalp. 

Dipping lower and lower into the water as he went, Link’s breath ruffled tiny waves beneath his nose and his eyes were having great difficulty staying open. He pulled in a deep, exhausted breath and slipped those last few inches down. Dragged his fingers through his hair, rinsed the soap out of every strand before pushing himself up, water cascading sleek over his head and down his back. 

There was only so much he could explore amongst the bottles arranged on the dirty tiles before his exhaustion started to get the better of him. After a bottle that blew iridescent bubbles from its top - each of which smelled of a different flower once popped - and a body wash that tasted of musk stick candy, and a soap that looked like gold and felt like satin, Link thought he could probably save the rest of his exploration for tomorrow. 

He was loath to leave the water, but the soft, sweet steam had by then filled the room, and the air wasn’t cold in the least. Link wasn’t sure who’d put it there, or if it’d even been there when he’d arrived, but there was a soft white towel waiting for him that he all but melted into, once he’d wrapped himself up. 

He only barely remembered to pick his dirty clothes up from the floor between his fingers, and outside the bathroom he glanced first down one end of the L-shaped hallway, and then down the other. 

One led down the stairs, to the dimly-lit living room, and the other ended quite abruptly with a door. There was a dim light seeping from beneath that door too, and Link thought he could hear vague sounds coming from behind it.

Stepping closer on wet tiptoes, Link pressed his ear to the wood. 

It was all very quiet, but he could almost discern the absent sound of a windchime, and then the murmur of Joyd’s voice. 

Before he could catch what he was saying, Link jerked back from the door, nervous. He wasn’t sure if there was anything he’d hate more than to be caught sneaking around a wizard’s home, peeping through keyholes, and he was certain Joyd was not the kind of gracious host who would let him off easy. 

As much as all that talk about stealing hearts had sounded like a joke at Link’s expense, he thought it would be very silly indeed to count on a wizard’s mercy simply because he’d had his demon draw up a bath. Very silly indeed, to trust him. 

For all Link knew, he would wake up in the morning without a heart to his name, cursed or not. 

But at the very least, he supposed through a jaw-cracking yawn as he pushed through the door by the stairs, he’d have had a bath first, and a good night’s rest. 

 

* * *

When Link woke in the morning, the first thing he found was that he did, in fact, still have a heart beating in his chest. No small relief, but still overwhelmed by the realisation that the bedroom he’d found himself in, though an apparent storage room for everything that wouldn’t fit in the mess of the lounge, was bigger than anything he’d had in his life.

Which was less a commentary on the room he was in than it was on any of the other rooms he’d been in, but that realisation too was overcome by the fact that the bed he’d fallen asleep on was more comfortable than any bed he’d ever slept on in his life. 

It was with that thought that, for the first time since he was a child, Link rolled over and went back to sleep. 

When he did finally end up dragging himself from the sheets with a great deal of reluctance, and pulled his dirty clothes over his clean body with somehow even more reluctance, it was quite bright outside the dusty window, and he sat on the edge of the bed with his back turned to it, wondering if he’d dreamed it all up. 

All of it - the whole thing. A nightmare turned to an absurdist play. But when he made himself glance around the messy, cluttered room, and look down at his dirty shoes, and then peer over at a window which showed a view quite unlike anything he’d seen before, Link felt he should very,  _ very  _ reluctantly admit to himself that he  _ was  _ cursed, he  _ was  _ in a wizard’s castle, and he was absurdly, cripplingly hungry. 

It was the ocean, he realised dimly. 

That great expanse of water he could see, shards of golden sun rippling across the surface, was the ocean. 

Link had never seen the ocean before. 

In fact, he’d never even gone all too far from Market Chipping before. Never more than two miles beyond the edge of town, and even then only to pick up flour from the mill.

But there he was, in a moving castle that had apparently meandered across the countryside through the night, all the way to the sea. 

With a weary sigh he pushed himself to his feet with the reluctant admission that he probably ought to face his situation, rather than hide up in what looked more like a storage room than a bedroom. 

On the landing, he paused. Glanced down the hall towards the bathroom. 

Warm sunlight was slinking across the floorboards from around the corner, a slight draught curling flurries through the dust, and Link hesitated. Wondered if there was another window out there, and wondered if there was a better view of the sea. 

With a surreptitious glance cast down the stairs, he crept along the hall and peered around the corner. 

He didn’t know how he hadn’t noticed last night, but there was a fourth door along that stretch of the wall, sitting slightly ajar now. Link supposed it had been dark, and supposed the door had been closed, because when he hooked his fingers around the lip a sharp, warm gust of wind blew it open. 

“Oh,” he said, stepping back from the door - which led out to a balcony, in fact, built into the side of the clockwork castle. “Sorry.”

The way Joyd tilted his head back to glance at him, slow and lazy, eyes narrow and satisfied with the cigarette trailing smoke from his fingers, Link was reminded quite abruptly of a cat sunning itself. 

And, indeed, he was leaning back in a spindly, rickety chair with his long legs propped up on the rusted rail of the balcony, the morning sun creeping in over the moors to gild his arms, hands, highlight his devious profile and pick out the gold in his eyes to make them that much richer. 

He smiled, lips sly and eyes teasing in a way that didn’t seem to ever quite stop, and said, “Don’t tell Allen I’m awake,” before ashing his cigarette with a delicate flick of his thumb and bringing it up to his lips. “I only got up for a smoke.”

Link opened his mouth with stumbled reassurances piled on his tongue, but before they could find their way past his lips, his eyes had caught on the familiar rolling hills and heathy turf of the moors just beyond Market Chipping. 

“I thought we were by the ocean,” was what tumbled out instead, thoughtless in his surprise. 

Joyd’s laughter was rich and quiet, and indulgence seemed to suit him well. “You’re in the Porthaven room, are you?” he said, lifting his chin to smirk at Link, the fingers holding his cigarette lingering around his lips. 

“I,” Link started, and then stopped. “Yes, I suppose,” he admitted. 

“I’ll be heading back to bed shortly,” Joyd said rather than deign to explain, his eyes drifting back out to watch the moors amble by in the genial ambiance of the castle’s huffing and puffing, “but feel free to start breakfast,” he allowed with a vague gesture back to the house. “Make yourself at home, if you like.”

“You’ve gotten awfully good at that awfully quick,” Link observed, hesitating by the door simply because he could. Because he wasn’t being forced away, and with the freedom to do so, he might like to linger in the morning sun and gentle wind. 

“It’s a simple matter of changing instructions to suggestions,” Joyd reasoned, and puffed on his cigarette, cat eyes cast further than the moors, “but that doesn’t lift your spell. I’ve got a few ideas,” he considered, and almost sounded as though he hadn’t realised he was still talking, words hummed and murmured, “but I’ll have to sleep on them.”

“Have you been thinking all night?” Link asked, a frown pinching at his brows. 

Joyd’s glance cut back to him, as though he’d forgotten Link was there. “Here and there,” he shrugged, and flicked his fingers vaguely as though to wave it away, “but I always like to sleep on my thoughts.”

“Would you like breakfast?” he offered, because he felt it was only right. Joyd may have been a wizard, and he may have threatened to eat Link’s heart, but, well. He hadn’t, had he? And he looked hardly so threatening, lazing about in the morning sun, content to watch the world meander by. Regardless of all that, he’d given Link a place to stay and the offer of food, and had taken up his business all but free of charge. 

The least he could do was cook breakfast.

“Maybe later,” he considered, and flicked the filter with his thumb to ash the cigarette. “I won’t be down for a while yet.”

“If you like,” Link allowed and stepped back, not entirely sure of what to say. 

With some awkward reluctance, he left the gold-soaked balcony behind and got all of halfway down the stairs before he thought to think that his morning, despite that he’d been up for all of five minutes, was already so far beyond real that were he to go back to Market Chipping and tell his coworkers at the bakery about it, they’d surely not believe him. 

What would he say, Link wondered as he slumped down to the living room - somehow even more filthy in the daylight.  _ I spent the night in Joyd’s castle and offered to make him breakfast when I caught him smoking on the balcony the next morning.  _

It was absurdity such that Link couldn’t quite parse it in the context of his life, so, when he stooped to drop a fresh log onto the charred embers that were all that was left of last night’s fire, he decided to stop trying. 

And if he ever did end up going back, he considered while Allen stirred and mumbled awake with a curl of smoke and crept out of the ashes only to curl his arms around the fresh log, bark already turning black and cherry-red under his touch. Well, if he ever did turn back, Link didn’t think he’d be able to explain away the past twelve hours, so he determined then and there that he wouldn’t bother trying. 

The fire gave a sleepy huff and rolled onto his back so he could glance up at Link beneath fluttering eyes, one of them white as a burning star, the other glowing as deep red-black as the bed of coals he lay on. 

“Is Tyki up there smoking?” was his only mumbled greeting before his eyes squeezed closed and his face collapsed into the largest yawn Link had ever seen, his flames flaring bright enough that Link had to avert his eyes for a moment before Allen settled with a loud huff.

Link made as though to answer, but the moment he thought the words were there to be said, he found his tongue was stuck to the roof of his mouth and his teeth were glued so tightly shut that he couldn’t have unstuck them if he’d tried. 

_ Don’t tell Allen I’m awake. _

Another one of those pesky, thoughtless commands.

Link huffed a sharp, deep breath in through his nose and let the condemning words fall away from him. Considering what he might be able to say, Link found he could open his mouth easily enough to admit pointedly to Allen, “He told me not to tell you.”

Allen’s expression scrunched in distaste, but he didn’t comment on Link’s difficulty with words. “He’s the  _ worst,”  _ was what he said, and rolled onto his side to curl his body around the log with a sweet little pout on his sleepy face. “I could just go out one day, and he’d be too busy ignoring me to notice.”

Appalled, Link asked, “Does he really take you for granted like that?”

The fire twisted his head to cast Link a look so deeply confused that he thought he might have imagined the complaint he’d just heard. “What do you mean?”

Reaching for another log with a frown sitting heavily between his brows, Link reasoned, “You’re the one moving the castle, aren’t you?”

“Well,” Allen hesitated to say, pushing up to sit so he could accept the second log from Link, still with that confused look on his face before he admitted, “yes.”

“And you pulled my bath last night,” Link reminded.

Allen shifted uncomfortably in his ashes and sat with his two logs bundled in his arms. “Who else is going to heat the water?” he replied, an uncertain tone to his sweet voice, and Link could feel those burning, mismatched eyes following his back when he brushed past to the kitchen-like alcove, piled impossibly high with pots and pans and plates and cups.

“I’ve never felt anything quite so relaxing in my life,” Link admitted, cautiously peering beneath the dishes piled on the sink, unsure of where to start looking for anything approaching edible fare. “That’s over and above simply heating the water.”

“That,” Allen started to say, and then hesitated. When Link glanced over his shoulder, the fire seemed to have shrunk down behind his logs, blue and pink chasing each other to flicker uncertainty through his flame. “That’s probably all Tyki’s magic, though,” he tried to reason, fingers burning nervous divots into the wood. 

Cautiously pulling open one of the cupboards, Link asked, “What else do you do around here?” and moved more boldly onto the next when he found nothing in there but a few suspicious looking jars growing mould in the bottom. 

“Well,” Allen started, “I… I keep the rooms warm, I… keep Tyki safe. He’s got a lot of powerful enemies, you know,” he said, voice dipping with caution, “and his magic is too easy to trace.”

“You do all that?” Link demanded, pausing in his search to pin Allen with an amazed, appalled look. “Without a shred of thanks?”

“I,” Allen shifted uncomfortably, flames flickering small and cool, blue settling on his reluctant expression, “I wouldn’t say that. Well,” he amended a moment later, and pressed his lips to the logs as though he might like to flicker small and dim and curl beneath them, “I  _ do  _ say that. But I never  _ mean  _ it.”

“Joyd would be lost without you,” Link affirmed with all the quiet certainty of someone who knew what being irreplaceable meant. 

“Well,” Allen scoffed, the blue melting back into pink, his shoulders creeping up to his ears, “of course he would. He’s dead useless,” he sniffed, eyes so resolutely on the logs it was as though he was talking to them rather than Link. 

“Isn’t he,” Link started, then hesitated, then decided he ought to finish up and ask, “one of the strongest wizards in Ingary?”

“Well, yes,” Allen admitted easily, what might have been embarrassment seeping out of his flames to settle in his fingertips, the rest of his brilliant fire settling back to his version of normalcy. “But there’s a difference between being powerful and being  _ useful.” _

“Clearly he needs you,” Link gave a simple shrug and went back to rummaging through the cupboards, “and I think he should tell you that more often.”

Allen’s laugh warbled awkward and forced, and he said, “I really hope he doesn’t. It’s not like him,” he reasoned, and admitted, “and I don’t think I’d like it very much.”

“Regardless,” Link huffed, swinging open what he hoped was a pantry, “we can’t let all your hard work go unnoticed. What  _ would  _ you like?”

Allen gave a long, sly hum and answered simply, “Another log.”

“How about,” Link reprimanded with a glance, “you finish the two you’ve got, and I’ll give you another once you’ve helped me make breakfast.”

Confused concern wrinkled across Allen’s brow. _“Breakfast?”_ he repeated, as though he’d never heard the word. “What have I got to do with _breakfast?”_

“I’m sure,” Link said, slipping what looked like a never-been-used cast iron pan from a hook in what certainly had turned out to be a pantry, along with a dumping ground for the few utensils which hadn’t found themselves filthy on the bench, “there are some eggs around here somewhere.”

_“Ohhhhhhhhhh,”_ Allen dragged out, and drew his legs up to his chest, seemed to recoil away from Link. “Oh, no. I don’t cook.”

“What do you mean, you don’t cook?” Link frowned. “You’re a fire, aren’t you? And a talented one, at that.”

“Well,” Allen huffed, shrinking away, “I don’t know how, and I’d rather not have to learn.”

“I think cooking is a wonderful skill to have,” Link said, and Allen seemed to shift uncomfortably.

“In theory,” he admitted, “yes. But there’s lots of  _ things  _ going on, and I never know how hot to burn, and what if I spill the water?” he demanded, the look on his face almost humorously horrified. “I’d go out!”

“I promise,” Link reassured, “I’ll let you know exactly what’s happening, and tell you just what I need you to do, and we can work our way up to tea. No water,” he clarified to Allen’s obvious suspicion. 

The fire dragged out a long, uncertain humm that never quite seemed to end until Link assured, “And if I find some bacon, I’ll give you the rind.”

At that he seemed to perk right up, and looked positively thrilled about the idea of cooking breakfast. 

Link didn’t end up finding any bacon in the half-hearted pantry, but he did find sausages, and a few eggs, and even a soft loaf of bread.

Where Joyd was doing his shopping, Link couldn’t imagine. Surely he couldn’t simply walk down the moors to Market Chipping and visit Cesari’s. He was known to be feared, and though Link couldn’t name anyone who might have been able to recognise him on sight, he had a feeling he’d be easy to pick from a crowd in a place like that. 

Coffee skin and gold eyes, and a look about him that wasn’t quite  _ unsettling _ **,** but which certainly caught the eye. 

Link was certain he’d have remembered seeing the Wizard Joyd at the bakery.

Regardless of where the food had come from, it wasn’t long before the lot of it was sizzling pleasantly atop Allen’s heat, the demon settled down to a stove-like fire licking blue-white flames up the side of the pan until Link had to scold him with a stern, “Stop that,” when he made as though to steal one of the sausages. “I’m not feeding you raw food.”

“I’m the one cooking it,” Allen grumbled, sinking back down beneath the pan in a huff. “Clearly I don’t mind how rare it is.”

“Settle,” Link instructed, a smile teasing unwilling amusement at his lips, and flicked the pan to roll the sausages. “And turn the heat down, would you? Seventeen degrees.”

“So specific **,”** Allen muttered, and flared a moment as though he might like to roll his eyes before simmering down to match Link’s suggestion. “What if I went down  _ eighteen _ degrees?”

“Then we’d be here all day,” Link answered simply, settling the pan back on the flames and cracking open an egg, “and you wouldn’t get your sausages,” he cautioned, and tossed the eggshell into the fire.

“I don’t think it makes all that much difference,” Allen commented blithely, far too telling in his casual tone.

“If you don’t kick that degree back up,” Link warned, “I’m feeding your eggs to Joyd.”

“You wouldn’t dare,” Allen hissed, squinting narrow eyes at Link from beneath the pan.

“I would,” he sniffed, cracking another egg and tossing Allen the shell.

“Why can I smell _cooking?”_ came a suspicious demand from halfway up the stairs. Link glanced over his shoulder to find Joyd himself ducking down to peer beneath the landing. 

“I’m making breakfast,” Link answered simply, and cracked another egg.

“With _what?”_ Joyd pressed, meandering down the stairs and coming to glance cautiously over Link’s shoulder. “That’s not _my_ fire, is it?” he asked, eyes on the blue-white flames, which flared a brilliant green-yellow in indignation.

“Clearly not,” Allen huffed, poking out from under the pan just to shoot Joyd a glare. 

“I thought you said you were going to bed,” Link commented, trying in vain not to consider too closely just  _ how  _ closely Joyd was standing.

“Well, I was,” he considered, “and I was almost asleep, too. But then I thought I might’ve been having a stroke, and came down to make sure it was just Allen burning the house down.”

“Why are you picking on _me?”_ Allen demanded, offended purple chasing red through his flames. 

“You’ve never cooked _me_ breakfast,” was what Joyd said by way of answer, and whirled away with the haughty look of a jilted lover.

“The power of asking nicely!” Allen harrumphed, and shrank studiously back beneath the pan. “Hope you choke on an egg.”

“Lover’s spat?” Link murmured to the room.

“I’m heading out,” Joyd said, and when Link glanced over his shoulder he saw him pulling a pink and grey quilted coat over his shoulders, the edges finished with gold.

“You most certainly are _not,”_ Allen corrected, and Link had all of a moment to pull the pan away before he was flaring out from beneath it to pin Joyd with a threatening scowl. “I cooked you breakfast, and you’re going to eat it!”

Skeptical, Joyd asked, “How burned is it?”

“It isn’t,” Link sniffed, “thank you. Get a plate; we’re sitting down.”

“You really don’t have to do any of this,” Joyd insisted, but it was a half-hearted effort at best, “and I really have to run to Porthaven.”

“You told me to make myself useful,” Link reasoned, and began serving sausages onto the plate he had ready. “So here I am, making myself useful.”

“Yes,” Joyd allowed with some scathing reluctance, “but I didn’t  _ tell  _ you to.” He stopped for a moment, glanced cautious concern at Link. “Did I?”

“Well,” Link admitted with an air of vague embarrassment, “no. But it’s only fair, isn’t it,” he said, pressing the plate into the wizard’s hand. “I can’t pay you, after all.”

He looked as though he might like to argue, but blew it all out in a sigh and allowed with a shrug, “Do what you want, I suppose. I’m still going,” he said, and speared only a hot, greasy sausage from the plate with the only clean knife Link had managed to find, and took a bite out of it as he made for the door. 

Allen poked out from under the pan to squint cautiously at the plate before whirling to cry distraught distress after Joyd. “Did you take my sausage?” he demanded, to the response of Joyd turning the multi-coloured door handle until it spun from green to blue.  _ “Tyki, did you take my sausage?”  _ Allen hollered after him, launching to the edge of the hearth as Joyd stepped out the door with a mocking grin thrown over his shoulder, his breakfast held up like a taunt. 

“Demanding that he eats,” Link huffed even as the door snapped shut behind him, “and sulking when he does? I think you like to complain for the fun of it,” he observed, wry and dry, and tilted the pan so the rest of the breakfast fell into Allen’s hungry flames. 

He flared up in a thrilled burst of yellow fire, and it was all consumed in a momentary blaze such that Link wondered if he’d even taken a moment to taste it.

“You’ll give yourself a stomach ache if you eat too quickly,” he warned, and resigned to settle for a spoon as his utensil. 

“Good thing I don’t have a stomach to ache,” the satisfied little thing reasoned, flames curling back into the shape of that starlight boy. Hair, skin, and the one of his eyes glowing with the white flame of a burning sun. A little bit ethereal, and a little bit eerie, but no less beautiful for his space oddity appearance. 

“Do you even need the food, then?” Link asked with a frown, slicing the remaining sausage with the edge of the spoon. 

“It’s a lovely little snack,” Allen said with a brilliant grin, “but firewood burns longer.”

Link eyed the hearth while he carefully rolled the first bite of the simple breakfast across his tongue. “What about all that ash?” he asked, gesturing to the piles on piles that had, in places, cascaded to melt with the dust covering what Link supposed was a hardwood floor. Or, he considered, the ash  _ was  _ the dust, and poor Allen hadn’t had his fireplace cleaned any time in the past decade. 

“All this?” Allen asked, and picked up a handful to let it drift like a liquid cloud between his fingers. “It’s comfortable,” he said with a small, happy smile, and spread his arms to fall back on a hill of it. Grey-white dust plumed up, and some cascaded over the edge of the hearth to meet the piles which had taken to growing on the floor.

Link’s lips pulled into an expression marked somewhere between appalled and disturbed, and he threw another surreptitious glance around the mess of the living room with the realisation that he seemed to have stumbled into the home of two people who had no inclination to clean and no time to clean, respectively.

Though, it was difficult to say at this point what Joyd’s stance was on the mess.

“Joyd doesn’t…” Link hesitated, shoulders curling a little as though he might like to shrink away from the mess. “...Mind?”

Allen cocked his head, a look of pure confusion flashing across his face. “Joyd?” he said as though he’d forgotten who Link was talking about. It was a long couple of seconds before the dots connected and he kicked his feet with a laugh,  _ “Ohhh,  _ wizard  _ Joyd.  _ How terrible. Isn’t it a terrible name?”

Link blinked his confusion, and wondered if he ought to be calling him Tyki, too. Then wondered for a moment of gut-wrenching nerves if he’d somehow gotten the wrong house, or the wrong wizard.

Not that… well. 

Not that he knew of any  _ other  _ wizards that wandered around in giant, walking junk heaps.

“He was called that back when he was in training,” the fire snickered, “but it’s a far sight better than  _ wizard Mikk,  _ don’t you think? You can’t even pretend to be terrifying with a name like that.”

“Is he not really terrifying, then?” Link asked, confusion folding a furrow between his brows. “Wait,” he amended a moment later, shooting to stand straight and whipping his head around to glance at the door. “Did he say he was going to  _ Porthaven?” _

“Well, yes,” Allen was saying even as Link dropped his plate on the edge of the hearth and dashed to the door. “I mean - no, and then yes, in that order,” he corrected himself, and Link wrenched open the door to a scene quite unlike the heather and gorse he’d come to expect. 

Sloppy cobblestones paved the street outside, the sky overhead so wonderfully blue that Link found himself distracted for a moment from the unfamiliar rows of buildings, facades of smooth weather-worn cement quite unlike the quaint brick and wood he was used to seeing around Market Chipping. And then - the air. Salt on a warm, cool breeze that had Link drawing his tongue across his lips as though he might like to taste the wind on them. 

“So,” he said dumbly, and blinked up and down the street before stepping back into the warm house he’d crawled into from the moors the previous night and closed the door on a town he never considered he’d ever see. “So,” he repeated, and looked at the coloured dial of the doorknob. 

Carefully, nervously, he reached out and clicked it over to the green quarter. 

When he unlatched the door, a gusty wind caught it, and Link had never really considered that the air around the moors had a particular smell about it. 

But, well, they certainly didn’t smell like the seasalt of what Link couldn’t believe was really Porthaven. There the moors were, though, all that heather and gorse slipping past beneath the doorstep of the moving castle Link had run and run and run after. Damp air, like what clouds tasted like. That’s what he supposed he could smell. 

He pulled the door closed again. Looked at the dial, quite unsure of what to make of it. 

Turned it back to blue, and opened the door to the same view of the same cobbled street, the sound of seagulls and distant boat horns rumbling from the harbour. Faintly, calls and cries from what Link could only suppose was a marketplace. 

Again, he closed the door, then stepped back to properly consider it. Hand on his hip, finger pressed to his lips. 

“This door leads to two places,” he concluded, and it sounded awfully weak even to himself.

“Well,” Allen said from behind him, and sounded altogether very amused about the whole thing, “most doors do.”

“Three places, then,” Link amended, unable to pull his eyes away from the unimpressive wooden door and its tarnished iron finishings. 

“Four, I think,” Allen corrected, “or five. It’s hard to say. The black one doesn’t really go anywhere, but it sort of goes  _ somewhere,  _ you know?”

“No,” Link admitted, because he  _ didn’t  _ know. “Where does red lead?”

“Kingsbury!” Allen announced, and Link glanced over his shoulder to stare at the proud flush of purple that flickered through his body.

“Kingsbury?” Link repeated, and wasn’t sure what was more absurd - that Allen had said it, or that Link believed him. Half to make sure it was true, and half because he didn’t  _ want  _ it to be true, Link turned the dial to the red quarter, and hesitated to pull the door open just far enough to poke his head out. 

Wide, smooth paved streets spread luxurious before him and gaudy carts pulled by high-stepping horses wheeled around carrying important people who certainly had important places to be. Ladies in rich, petticoated dresses and hats of exuberant fashion walked by with delicate steps, and the men were just as showy in their neat gloves, well-cut suits trimmed with gold and silver and satin and silk. 

Link closed the door, and leaned in against it quite heavily as though to hold the cheerful, meandering city of riches out. 

“You have Kingsbury right outside the door,” he said, turning to press his back against the wood so he could pin Allen with a stern look, “and the castle looks like  _ this?”  _

Allen frowned back, looking a little affronted and a little offended. “What do you mean?” he asked, defensive, and glanced around the cluttered, filthy room. “It’s always been like this.”

“Surely not  _ always,”  _ Link stressed, vexed, and paced towards what might have been a dining table under all that  _ stuff,  _ before turning on his heel towards the kitchen, piled almost to the roof of its arched alcove with filthy dishes, and then stopped in his tracks to look right up above his head to the cobwebs hanging thick and untouched from the ceiling. 

His brows pinched in something like distress when he watched a long, spindly spider meander across a thick bridge of web from one rafter to the next. 

“I,” Allen started, and then stopped, glancing around cautiously. “Well, I can’t remember it ever being  _ clean,”  _ he reasoned. 

Link righted his head to pin the fire with an unimpressed look. “Would you like to see what the floors look like?”

Allen hesitated, uncertain, and shifted to pull his knees up to his chest while he glanced cautiously around. “Are…” he trailed off, and peered over the edge of the hearth at the floor. “Are you sure Tyki won’t mind?”

“I’m sure,” Link said, firm and unwavering, “that if he does, at least he’ll have a clean house.”

Allen shrank deeper into his ashes and mumbled against his knees, “That sounded like a threat.”

“It was,” Link confirmed, grim, and turned to stalk back to the door. Turning the knob to the moors, he pulled it open and trotted down the steps, clung to the rail and peered around the underside of the castle, hair catching and blowing in the wind. 

“Will the castle be stopping soon?” he called back through the door to Allen.

“We’re gonna set down near Star Lake,” he called back. “About five minutes.”

“Good,” Link scowled, severe, and went back inside with all the determination of someone who was thoroughly fed up with his situation and, while unable to do anything about it, demanded the burning urge to do  _ something.  _ “Is there anything in this house that will kill me?”

“Um,” Allen hesitated, huddled between two towers of ash, “not unless you break it?”

“I guess I’ll be careful, then,” Link said, lips pressed into a severe line. “Heat some water once we arrive, would you?”

Small, and probably more that a little anxious, Allen demurred, “Okay,” and huddled deeper into his ashes, nervous eyes watching Link over the top of his log.

It was a miraculous show of embittered determination that had Link stepping up to that dining table and, upon scouring it for some sign of where to begin, discovered that the majority of the mess was large, heavy leather-bound books that probably belonged on the dusty, cobwebbed bookshelf - which seemed to have repurposed itself as a dumping ground for things that people walked into the house with and didn’t know quite where to put down. 

Umbrellas, canes, satchels, shopping bags, hats and gloves and scarves, pens on pens on pens, and Link spotted at least three rings heavy with dusty keys. 

“Why?” Link demanded of the cluttered, sad-looking bookshelf. “There’s a coat rack right by the door.”

When he turned to look where he remembered spotting it, he discovered exactly why Tyki hadn’t seemed to find it possible to shed his accessories there. 

It was hung with a mirror, positioned so he could look himself over quickly before leaving the house. 

“This is absurd,” he announced, and decided to start by striding over to the coat rack, and pulling the mirror down so he could hang it on the hook positioned quite pointedly beside the door. “This is absolutely,  _ stupidly  _ ridiculous,” he emphasised, storming towards the bookshelf and waving away the cobwebs that had draped themselves over everything to catch nothing but dust. 

Piling his arms with umbrellas and canes - three of each, that Link could find, not that he knew why  _ one man  _ would need three of  _ any -  _ and stood them all in the strut of the coat rack. Several trips back and forth, and the bookshelf was looking a lot more like itself. 

There was the to-do with all those keys, and Link supposed he should hook them by the hearth in case they were important. Allen didn’t know what to make of them - he didn’t think he recognised any of the rings, let alone the keys which belonged to them. Link pressed his lips together with the thought that very likely they didn’t even belong to Tyki. 

Or, even worse, that they didn’t lead anywhere and existed for the sole purpose of vexing him.

The hot water was ready not long after, and in trudging up the stairs to fill the bucket, Link was overcome again with a furious, outward-driven disgust. Were he to examine it too closely, he would surely recognise exactly where his fury was coming from, but it wasn’t something he felt he was quite prepared to examine at all just yet, and it was much easier to be frustrated and furious with a filthy house than it was to be with himself, or his curse, or the witch who’d cast it on him.

Things on things on things were piled painstakingly outside the house through the Porthaven door - Link refusing to even  _ look  _ at the red of Kingsbury with the house in such a state - and once they were clear Link was sweeping all that piled ash and dust down the steps onto the moors, pushing piles and piles through the door more out of plain determination than anything. 

The cobwebs - god, the  _ cobwebs.  _ They were next to go, Link tying what he hoped was a clean cloth across his mouth and nose so only his embittered scowl could be seen while he scrubbed the push broom across the rafters, dust and webs and scuttling spiders raining down to be chased out the door onto the moors. 

The cabinets, once they were wiped free of dust, were a wonderful dark mahogany, and Link felt he appreciated the intricacy of the carved doors and drawers all the more for how attentively he had to clean them. Lovely blue-patterned tiles paved the kitchen, and a deep-set window behind the sink gave a view of the pretty lake Allen had set the castle down by the shores of.

Once they’d been thoroughly scrubbed, Allen decided he was satisfied with Link telling him that yes, the floors  _ were _ hardwood, and took to wondering out loud with some degree of distaste when Tyki would be back to put a stop to the menace of Link’s compulsive cleaning. 

Link’s appreciation for the flasks and bottles and jars and tubs and scattered, stained and crumpled pages of what he could only assume were spells was quite drastically limited by the fact there seemed to be no system in place with sorting them, and only about half were labeled. 

It took a painstaking half hour to make some attempt of ordering the papers, dusting the bottles and alphabetising the ingredients, and by the end of it he was hardly satisfied - there was a whole shelf of nameless spells which he’d suffered through arranging by size. But were he to grind his teeth over it the way Allen seemed to be biting his nervous lips (and kept shooting glances at the door as though he were afraid of Link being caught in the act and him being implicated by proxy) then the rest of the house would never see the wrath of his frustration.

He did try to warn Link that the rug was absolutely hideous under all that dust, and that beating it would only serve to ruin all his efforts of prettying the place up, but Link had learned to tell a lie through the insidious flush of orange that flared through him half a moment before he opened his mouth.

Once he’d carried all the books and bits and bobs back in from Porthaven, wiped down the table and dusted the bookshelf, Link set his eyes on the demon who had taken to lazing across his hearth, hands set threateningly on his hips.

Allen started looking scared again.

“What?” he asked, shoulders creeping up around his nervous ears, flushed an unsteady red. 

“You know I have to sweep the hearth,” Link reprimanded, stepping up to the fireplace. “Can you…” he gestured vaguely, as though to shoo the fire off his logs, “go? Somewhere else?”

Affronted, Allen sat up with an indignant flush spreading across his cheeks to demand, “Would you ask a tree to uproot itself, so you could rake the leaves it dropped?”

Dry, lips sealed in an unimpressed line, Link reasoned, “But you’re not a tree; you’re a fire. And you seem to have two very convenient legs.”

In a deep, dramatic sigh, Allen fell back against his pillows of ash and bemoaned, “They’re all for show, I’m afraid.”

“Shall I douse you, then?”

Allen’s face folded into an aggrieved grimace and he bargained, “Can I command you to feel less motivated?”

Link stooped to heft the murky mop bucket from the floor like a threat and said, “You can’t command me to feel  _ anything, _ so I suggest you pick up your log and scooch.”

Allen shrank away with a small yelp, his body flickering and shifting within one blink and the next, and Link thought he’d disappeared altogether for a moment before a small orange flame poked is way above one of the burned-down logs. “You can’t do that,” it warned in Allen’s voice, and seemed to be trying to sound severe. “Tyki’ll eat you whole.” 

Unfazed by the threat which had, up til then, amounted to nothing but a joke on the whole countryside’s population, Link demanded, “Are you  _ bound  _ there or something?”

“Maybe I am!” Allen bartered, childishly impetuous, but shrank smaller and smaller the closer Link got to him.

“Well, I’m taking your log,” Link announced, reaching for the ornately carved brass tongs which hung beside the hearth, and pinched the crumbling, burned-down thing and lifted it into the pan, nestled in the ash from where Link had cooked them breakfast, “so if you fancy staying alight, I suggest you hold on.”

Allen did fancy that, it turned out, and clung with quite a desperate yelp to the burning embers of the log, tiny flameburst arms flung over it, what counted for a fire’s torso dipping as though weighed down with something quite heavy. 

“What’s that you’re hiding?” Link asked with a curious frown, lowering Allen into the pan and making as though to poke at it with the tip of the tongs. 

“I  _ told  _ you,” Allen harrumphed, spilling out too quickly to fill the pan with liquid-white flames, too hot for Link to stand so close to. “It’s my heart!”

“I thought.” Link cut himself off, and blinked at Allen’s too-bright flames as though trying to catch sight of a heart through a burning star. “I thought you were lying about that,” he admitted, and let a tickle of abashed apology curl into his voice. “I’ve never heard of demons having hearts before.”

“A very lucky demon,” Allen said, and seemed to shrink into his admission, away from what might have been - what  _ must  _ have been a momentary panic - and twisted around himself as though he might like to cradle it, were he more substantial. Were it not a part of him. Somewhat small, he murmured, “A very lucky demon might be given one, as a gift.”

A cautious step closer, Link’s tentative concern come to intrigue, he said, “So is it really your heart? Or is it - well.” With a surreptitious glance over his shoulder at the door, he asked, “Does it belong to Tyki?”

“I don’t see what it matters,” Allen muttered on a sigh, and unravelled like the thought of having to think about it exhausted him. “It’s not like I can give it back, either way.”

“Would he like to have it back, do you think?” Link asked, and wondered what it might feel like to be heartless.

It would be either wonderfully freeing, or horribly boring. Link didn’t think someone without a heart could help but be a little bit cruel.

“He’s quite happy,” Allen said, “not being weighed down by silly things like that.”

“Do you think it’s silly?”

“His heart?” Allen clarified with a surprised blink up at him. “I think it’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever laid eyes on. But,” he allowed, drifting up out of his shapeless form just a little, a wry, indulgent smile curling onto his burning lips, “I think that goes for the rest of him, too.”

“So it really is a joke, then,” Link said with a bit of a wry smile, and lowered the bucket back to the floor. “He doesn’t eat hearts, and he’s really not terrible at all.”

Allen dragged his teeth across his lips and glanced surreptitiously around the castle. “Well,” he started, and didn’t seem to know what to finish with. “Well,” he tried again, “he’s… he’s not terrible, no. But.” He hesitated again, flickered uncertainly. “But I don’t think you should take that to mean he’s  _ kind.” _

Link tilted his head gently, brows drawing together a touch. “I don’t,” he said, then stopped to consider. “I don’t think I’d call him  _ unkind _ **,** though,” he countered. “I mean,” he allowed, letting his eyes drop to his day-old grass-stained pants. “He did let me stay,” he said, fingers curling into the hem of his shirt. “He did promise to help.”

Allen’s lips curled as though he might like to smile, eyes a little pitying. For Link’s naivete, he supposed.

“I don’t know what selflessness looks like, on him,” the fire admitted, almost apologetic. “I think he’s bored, and I think he thinks you’re a quaint distraction.”

“Quaint,” Link repeated, lips twisting in distaste.

“Not that I’d call your situation  _ quaint _ **,”** Allen rushed to amend, sitting up with an awkward teal flush flooding through him, “but, you know Tyki’s not…”

“Doing it out of the goodness of his heart,” Link picked up his trailed sentence with a wry, unsatisfied smile, “of course.”

“Yeah,” Allen agreed, a little bit amused and a little bit apologetic. 

Link pursed his lips, unsure of quite what to do with himself for a moment before pulling in a stern breath, lifting his chin and setting his shoulders. “Well,” he announced, “if one of us is to be thankless, it won’t be me.”

“Thankless for _what?”_ Allen grumbled, immediately recoiling from Link’s determination, puddling down into the pan to peer with shrewd eyes over the edge while Link took to shaking out a heavy sheet and laying it on the floor before the hearth, the severity of his concern dropping away for more important matters. “A home invasion gone wrong?”

“It’s called a standard of living,” Link corrected with a sniff as he tied the scarf back around his face, “and I’d thank you to be a touch appreciative, in his stead.”

Allen did little but whimper and whine and groan while Link cleared out hill after hill of dust from his hearth, bundled it all up and threw it out onto the moors, whose lakeside shores had taken quite a beating in terms of dust and dirt and cobwebs that day.

And with that, and with Allen put back in his hearth (which turned out to have lovely brass struts girting the firebed, all of which had been buried so deep and so log in ash and ember that Allen himself was surprised to see them) and the frypan from breakfast scrubbed in the fresh, clean sink, the entirety of the downstairs was clean.

“This is awful,” Allen moaned, flickering low and ashamed in his fireplace, distressed eyes glancing mild panic across all the clean surfaces and clear, empty space. “Tyki’s gonna kill us. Why did I let you do any of this?”

“I don’t think you could have stopped me if you’d tried,” Link commented ambivalently, his own appraisal of the house more satisfied pride than morbid horror.

“I am a demon, you know,” he sniffed. 

“A demon whose death can be dealt with a spill of water,” Link reminded, dry. “You’re not so scary, after all.”

“Know what else’ll kill me?” Allen groused, flickering posessively over the last chunk of burned-down wood he had left. “Starvation. I can feel myself… going out.”

“Stop being so dramatic,” Link reprimanded, prim and reasonable, and made for the stairs with his broom in hand. “I’ll give you another once I finish up here.”

_ “Seriously?”  _ Allen demanded, appalled. “Don’t you think you’ve done enough damage?”

“I wouldn’t expect you to understand,” Link sniffed, tramping up the stairs. “I doubt you’ve ever even been up here.” To Allen’s muttered grumbles Link figured he was right, and decided the best place to start would be the worst, and that the bathroom was by far the most horrific class of mess he’d ever seen. 

It took something like an hour to scrub the walls of stains and wipe down the porcelain, clean the soap tarnish from the brass fixings and lift the filthy mat to mop the floors. And then, onto the Porthaven room. Everything in there -  _ everything -  _ found its place down in the living room. Lamps which had never seen oil, half a mismatched dining set which he arranged with the rest around the mismatched table, curtains which might have been intended to be hung or perhaps torn down, which Link strung over his window regardless. 

_ More  _ books, even. Boxes and boxes, thick and slim and aged and ancient, and in digging through it all Link found what he could only imagine was a star map. Imagine, because as little as he knew about stars, he knew he didn’t know a single constellation on that map.  _ Sirius  _ was penned next to one jagged-looking grouping,  _ Orion  _ to what looked vaguely like a man. And from one of the two crosses making  _ Gemini  _ a point was highlighted, marked as the radiant of a starstorm. 

Frankly, Link didn’t know what to make of it. So he set the chart aside with everything else, and forgot he’d ever found it amongst the armfuls of texts he carried down to the bookshelf.

With his room swept and mopped, the rafters scrubbed of cobwebs and the dust all swept out over the edge of the balcony, Link turned to the final room he had left to conquer. Facing Tyki’s door, he had to still his breath for a moment and steel his will. Tyki, at that moment, was the least of his problems. But truthfully Link had no idea what he might find in a wizard’s bedroom.

It could be that he kept spiders, or perhaps insects. Dread curling up the base of his spine - dread and a horrible fear like something squeezing at his lungs - Link considered that Tyki might favour snakes. His hands felt cold, arms numb. He closed his eyes, and thought it might be best to simply leave Tyki’s room to Tyki.

Heart trembling in his chest he reached out for the doorknob and made as though to twist it. 

His hand slipped.

Link frowned, confusion momentarily overtaking anxiety, and he tried again.

It was as though the brass knob were coated slick with oil, but when Link pulled his hand away to look there was no residue left on his palm. Fighting frustration, he tried with his other hand. To the same results he tried with both hands, tried wrapping them in the hem of his shirt, tried twisting it between his forearms or in the crook of his elbow.

Perplexed and defeated, Link stepped back with a huff and looked down at the unobtrusive door, completely unaffected by his efforts. Reluctant relief trickled through him, between the bars of his frustration. Whatever secrets Tyki wanted to keep, Link wouldn’t have to go through discovering them. Regardless of his loss, that was something of a win. 

_ “Liiiiiiink!”  _ he heard Allen cry from downstairs.  _ “I need food!” _

Link hummed, and looked at the door. It hadn’t broken a sweat. 

_ “Link?”  _ Allen called again, and paused as though waiting for an answer.  _ “Link, I’m going out!”  _ he warned.

Link allowed himself the mercy of briefly rolling his eyes. 

_ “LINK!”  _ he demanded, loud enough to make him jump.  _ “BRING ME A SNACK!” _

Unable to help the corrosive burn of the command, Link turned on his heel and stormed downstairs, teeth locked against the silent agony of compulsion until he moment he’d picked a log from the pile mounted purposefully out of Allen’s reach and dumped it into the crumbling embers which were all that was left of his last meal. 

_ “Why,”  _ he gritted, carefully unlocking his teeth at the trepidatious fear of the pain returning, “did you do that?”

“Why  _ wouldn’t  _ I?” Allen countered sullenly, weakly flickering arms curling over the log. “I was about to go out and you weren’t listening.”

“It,” Link started, and gave a short, quickly-aborted gesture before finishing,  _ “hurts.  _ The commands hurt.”

“So does literal death,” Allen griped sourly. “And not just mine, you know.”

Link blinked back his surprised, asked, “What?”

Allen’s lips twisted, dissatisfied and upset. “It’s Tyki’s heart,” he reminded dully, sinking exhaustedly down beneath the log. “What do  _ you  _ think.”

Reluctantly dry, Link allowed, “I suppose you can’t really compare the two, then. But you know,” he added, words dripping with reprimand, “if you weren’t asking for food every ten minutes, maybe I’d believe you when you say you need some.”

“Maybe if you gave me food every ten minutes, I wouldn’t have to say  _ anything,”  _ Allen countered, poking his head above the log to give Link a look that said he truly believed that what he was saying was realistic and rational. 

“No,” Link denounced immediately. “We have a finite supply of wood, and I’d say the same goes for money with which to buy more. At the rate you’re wanting to go, you won’t last a week.”

“The problem here,” Allen commented, “is that I really  _ don’t  _ see the problem in taking advantage of what seems like a wonderful personal convenience. And I don’t think you really have the power to stop me.”

Link was far from amused. “Clearly,” he commented, bland, “the one I  _ should  _ have been worried of abusing my predicament was not Joyd himself, but rather the demon that lives in his fireplace.”

“Oh, no,” Allen said immediately, shooting to sit up, horrified eyes on the door. “He’s back.”

The moment the front door swung open, several things happened.

Firstly, Tyki walked in. 

Secondly, Allen let loose a sharp, nervous sound.

Lastly, Link realised he was in fact more worried about what would happen next than he thought he would be.

But all Tyki did was look around the spotless room with a knowing kind of expression, nod vaguely, and turn around.

“Faulty door,” he seemed to decide was the problem, and left back the way he came.

A moment later he came through the same door in the same manner, and looked markedly more puzzled. “Not…” he dragged out, deeply confused, “the door, then.”

It didn’t sound like a question - and, in fact, wasn’t one - but Link took it upon himself to answer. “I cleaned up a little.”

Tyki pulled in a long, considering breath as though he were trying to reconcile his reality, eyes drawing from the kitchen to the bookshelf and back. “You sure did.” He tilted his head back to look at the ceiling, and his lips pitched down in a dissatisfied sort of expression. “You chased all my spiders out,” he said, and sounded mildly upset about it.

“They weren’t paying rent,” Link reasoned. “I think they’ll all be very happy on the moors.”

“They were very happy where they were,” Tyki reasoned, and looked down at the rug. He shifted his feet to see the intricate red-cream-gold weave of the wool and commented, “This is a _very_ ugly rug.”

“Told you,” Allen muttered, words muffled against the log he was all but hiding behind.

“I don’t think it’s so bad,” Link countered, lifting his chin in what might have been seen as a stubborn expression.

“I think I definitely have to get a new one,” Tyki refuted, “now that I'm being forced to see it.”

“What’s so wrong with it?” Link asked, scowling down at the admittedly quite ostentatious thing.

“It’s a bit gaudy,” Tyki said, lips twisted in distaste, and dragged the toe of his shoe along a line of gold thread. 

Link looked at Tyki - looked at the coat that draped over one of his shoulders, the emerald drop earrings that hung from his ears, the gold chain and polished stone that fell into the creases of his loose shirt, rings on his fingers.

“I suppose.”

“I’ll have to go to Kingsbury,” he sighed like it was a great big hassle, and made as though to brush past towards the stairs.

Almost without thinking - or more likely entirely without thinking - Link’s hand shot out to brace against his chest, stopping him half a step from walking off the carpet and onto Link’s freshly swept and mopped floors. Tyki looked down at Link’s staying hand as though he wasn’t quite sure what to make of it, and glanced up at him to cock a daring brow. 

“Shoes,” Link said, stubborn, “and coat. By the door.”

Tyki blinked at him long and slow as though he didn’t understand at all. “Pardon?”

“I’d like you to leave your shoes and coat by the door, thanks,” he repeated, trying for stern while his nerves lasted.

Eyes drifting back down to where Link’s hand was pressed to his chest, Tyki delicately cleared his throat and brought a finger to lift Link’s wrist away. Stepped past, shoulder brushing against Link’s, and didn’t look at his face until he was at the base of the stairs. One foot on the bottom step, one hand on the banister, he hooked his finger beneath the collar of that gaudy coat and lifted it up like an ambivalent threat. 

“I’ll think about it,” he said simply, a sharp little smile on his lips, let the coat drop to the floor, and went up the stairs without so much as another glance thrown Link’s way.

Link shot a quick, fervent look to Allen, who seemed just as wide-eyed and lock-jawed as Link was.

“That,” Allen started once they’d heard a door snap shut, and then decided to admit, “I have no idea.”

“At least an estimate,” Link all but pleaded.

Allen’s lips parted, then pushed into a tense, wary pout and he shot a nervous glance at the staircase as though expecting Tyki to charge down with an embittered scowl and snap,  _ and another thing… _

“I,” he tried, “he, uh. It’s.” He chewed his lip, gave Link that threatened look. “It’s either way _better_ than it looks, or way… _way_ worse.”

“What does better look like?” Link asked, surreptitiously hopeful.

“Like…” Allen dragged out, considering, “he’ll sulk for an hour or two and come back pretending none of it ever happened and things have always been like this.”

“What does _worse_ look like?” Link hated to ask.

Allen looked as though he wished he could be just about anywhere else. “Probably,” he hesitated, and pressed his lips into a thin line. Quiet, apologetic, he said, “Probably don’t ask.”

A soft sigh falling past Link’s lips, he followed Tyki’s steps across the clean floor and stooped to pick up the coat from where it had fallen into an elegant heap at the foot of the stairs. After carefully brushing it off - not that there would be much to dirty it, he supposed, a touch wry - Link hung it over the back of the silver-and-satin winged armchair which he’d taken to be Tyki’s favourite, and went to the kitchen for the skillet he’d cooked their breakfast on. 

“I’m sure there’s something we can do,” Link considered, placing the pan on the edge of the hearth and going back to the pantry for where he’d seen salami, cheese, mushrooms and eggs, “to make it better than it seems. He didn’t get much breakfast, after all,” he reasoned simply, arranging it all on a wooden board before Allen.

“What?” he demanded even as Link started slicing the salami and cheese. “No,” he insisted, aghast, “no, he’s already upset that I cooked for you. Let’s not do it again?” he pleaded, brows pitched in a wonderfully endearing expression of entreating platitude. 

“Let’s try,” Link commanded, staunch, and offered the pan out for Allen to take. “I’d rather not find out what  _ worse _ looks like.”

It was a short affair, putting a toasted sandwich together, but as much as Link had entreated, Allen staunchly refused to heat the coffee pot, so all he had to offer was a glass of milk with a dash of vanilla, balanced on the plate in one hand. He didn’t bother trying to turn the handle to Tyki’s room this time, and instead tapped his knuckles against the wood. 

A long moment passed, and Link tilted his head as though to listen for Tyki pacing around in sour frustration.

There was nothing, really, but that faint, absent sound of a wind chime. 

“Joyd?” he called, careful, and knocked again.

“What?” a facetiously mild voice answered from behind him, and Link whipped around sharp enough that the glass almost tipped, stayed only by his quick hand.

He’d stopped for a shower, it seemed quite clear from the way his hair hung loose and damp over his shoulder, drops sliding down his dark chest. Link was too fixated, for a moment, on the messy scar of an old starburst burn over his heart to take in the towel tucked low around his hips - or the scathing look of imperial boredom on his face.

“I,” he said, eyes on that scar, wondering what it must feel like to have a demon burn his heart out of his chest.

Tyki’s pointed, expectant silence had him glancing up sharply, jaw tight and eyes wide in the face of his mockery of patience.

He didn’t tease Link’s loss for words with that rejoinder of _‘You’_ that he almost expected. He didn’t say anything, didn't do anything but stand there in the hallway with Link between him and his bedroom door.

Heat creeping up beneath his collar, Link’s eyes skated across Tyki’s scarred chest, water drops tracing their meandering paths down his skin, and then away to find some crack in the floorboards to crawl inside and settle into. 

Meek, and not entirely sure why he was so unnerved by Tyki’s silence, Link rushed to defend, “I didn’t want to,” and faltered halfway into an apologetic mumble of, “upset you.”

Tyki took a step forwards as though he might like to walk around Link to get to his door, but Link took that defensive half-step to match him, and found his back pressed to the stern wood, unwillingly blocking his way.

Voice so quiet Link almost wouldn’t have recognised it for his, had it not had that rich, smooth texture of well-polished mahogany that would be so difficult to misplace, Tyki murmured, “I should think it would take a lot more than cleaning my house to _upset_ me.”

“So should I,” Link agreed, and wasn't sure where he found the will to match his gaze, that nervous flush dragging up his neck. Tyki’s eyes were unwavering from him, and just as unreadable, those wonderful golden things. An inscrutable face tended to say a lot, on occasion, but Link found he really couldn’t place Tyki at all. “So I’m wondering why you are.”

Tyki blinked at him, long and slow, and said at length, “You’re exhausting.”

Link’s chin jerked in a measure of affront, and he demanded quite thoughtlessly, “I’m sorry?”

He seemed to settle into a weary breath, broad shoulders low and his cat’s eyes half-lidded, and reasoned, “You’d cooked breakfast by the time I’d smoked a cigarette, and when I left for a few hours to see if my orders had arrived in the harbour, you managed to clean a house that hadn’t been touched in _years_ into something quite unrecognisable. In the time it took me to shower,” he said, and reached out an elegant hand to pluck half the cut sandwich from the plate and examine it shrewdly, “you’ve managed to outdo yourself all over again. You’re not _upsetting,_ Link,” he said, and took another step forward as though to crowd him against the door, but only reached beneath his elbow to twist the brass handle and slip past to reverse their positions. “You’re _exhausting,”_ he emphasised, took a bite from the sandwich in his hand, and closed the door on Link’s shocked face. 

Link stood blinking at the door, and wondered if he ought to rap his knuckles against the wood and demand some further kind of explanation - or at least that Tyki take the rest of the sandwich. Considered knocking just to catch another glimpse of what might have been behind the door - that rich shock of green and gleaming gold, blue and purple and yellow scattered throughout a clutter of shining things Link couldn’t even begin to define the beginnings and ends of.

But he supposed an answer - as sniped and righteous as Tyki offered in his frustration - was an answer nonetheless, and with things seeming better than they’d looked, he figured it wasn’t worth his neck to push his luck.

So with a bit of an unsatisfied sigh, Link lifted his chin and straightened his shoulders, and fixed his loose collar against his neck before turning on his heel and striding down the hall. 

He couldn’t help but pause at the bathroom door, left ajar for a loose, pale green steam smelling of mint and lime and tea tree and apple to air out. But despite the steam, and a few wet footprints on the tile, there was nothing much that Link could see was out of place. The leg of Tyki’s pants was hanging out of the basket Link had put in the corner, and there wasn’t so much as a stain on the porcelain.

He breathed another sigh, this one quiet and a little regretful - regretful for  _ what,  _ it took him a moment to identify. When he realised with an abashed flush that he’d expected to find the bathroom in a state of childish disrepair, Link swallowed back his awful opinion of Tyki’s temper and pulled the door closed on the lovely, fresh steam with a gentle click of the latch. 

By the time he was halfway down the steps, Allen was asking with a cautious pitch to his voice, “What’s the forecast?”

“Almost fine,” Link supposed, and came around to push the plate onto the hearth with a rough, ceramic grind, more frustrated with himself at that point than anything else. “I think he’s tired.”

“He’s tired,” Allen snorted a dry laugh, and snuck fingers of flame towards the second half of the sandwich, snatching it up when Link made no move to reprimand him. “He’s _always_ tired,” he complained with a bit of a huff. “If he had the choice, he’d sleep twenty hours a day.”

“He does have the choice,” Link reminded, lips tight in an expression of almost-displeasure as he sat back into the deep green velour chair he’d claimed out of reservation for Tyki’s. “I somehow doubt anyone could make him do anything, if he weren’t so inclined.”

“You made him tromp up the stairs in a huff,” Allen offered with an arched brow.

Dry, Link reasoned, “He certainly seems inclined to _huff,_ though.”

Allen buried his laughter against the charred ember of his log and nodded his head in emphatic agreement, but seemed uninclined to say anything particularly incriminating. 

“Besides,” Link said, leaning his cheek on his fist, watching colours flash through Allen’s molten-glass body, “there’s a difference between being tired and needing to sleep.”

“I wouldn’t know,” Allen sighed, desolate, and sprawled out helplessly across the hearth. “It gets so boring here, sometimes all I can do is sleep.”

“Why don’t you take up reading?” was the first thing that came to mind, and spilled thoughtlessly past Link’s lips. He’d have liked to say he was thinking of all those books he’d dusted off and reshelved, but from the scathing, incredulous look that settled onto Allen’s face, it seemed he hadn’t been thinking at all.

“Books?” was the first thing he said, as if it were the most absurd thing he’d ever heard. “Made out of _paper?”_ he emphasised, and Link’s lips parted in abashed understanding. “Written in _human script?_ My, Link,” he gaped, somehow tastefully theatric despite that Link was quite clearly the punchline of this absurdly dramatic response, “what a very good idea. A very, _very_ good idea. Link,” Allen said, shaking his head in wonderful amazement, “give yourself a round of applause. A standing ovation.”

Link almost dropped his head, for how quickly his hand fell from beneath his cheek to start a crisp, enthusiastic clap, his body leaving him no choice but to stand from the first seat he’d taken since morning.

“It was just a suggestion,” he defended, an embarrassed flush creeping up his neck while he applauded Allen’s amusement.

“Well, that wasn’t,” Allen pointed out, waiting for his appeasement. “It was an order.”

“Wait,” came a command of invested confusion from the foot of the stairs, and Link was frustrated to be relieved that it was enough to let him still his applause. Tyki, looking as though he’d just stumbled across such wonderfully good news as to make his entire day, asked of the demon lounging in the fireplace, “You can’t  _ read?” _

“Ruining the fun like always, I see,” Allen commented, thoroughly unhappy with him. 

“It’s not  _ fun,”  _ Tyki reprimanded, breezing into the room with an air as though the past twenty minutes really hadn’t happened at all and, as Allen had prophesied, things had always been exactly as they were. “It’s a  _ curse,  _ and I’m sure it’s absolutely awful to be pushed around like that. Isn’t it?” he asked, eyes on Link, dipping sly with something keenly, threateningly amused. 

Before he could even agree of his own volition, Tyki was saying, “Go on, Link. Tell him it’s awful.”

“It’s awful,” he was saying before he had a moment to suck in a breath, words dragged like razorblades from his tongue. “Please _don’t,”_ he said next, and shot Tyki a cold glare.

“I promise,” Tyki said, eyes still narrow and taunting when he picked up his coat from the back of his chair and slung it around his shoulders, “that was just to make up for the sandwich. Which was wonderful, by the way.”

“Some thanks,” Link muttered, dragging his fingers across his cheek as though he could wipe away the sensation of being forced to speak.

“To make up for the house,” Tyki announced as though he hadn’t heard, and paused to scuff his toe against the admittedly quite out-of-place rug in a gesture of effective distaste, “and the carpet. I’d like you to come to Kingsbury with me.”

“Kingsbury,” Link repeated, throat quite suddenly gone dry.

“The red door,” Tyki explained patiently, a horrible little smile curling on his lips.

“I know,” Link defended, feeling a little weak, “which _door_ it is.”

“Lovely,” Tyki announced, far to bright. “Should we head right out, then?” he proposed, reaching for the handle.

_“No,”_ he refuted, aghast, “I’m- I’m _filthy,_ I don’t have a change of clothes!”

“Well,” Tyki sighed as though Link were the absurd one, “you won’t very well get a new outfit standing around here, will you.”

“Well,” Link countered, an offended mirror of Tyki’s templated turn of phrase, “I can’t very well go out in Kingsbury looking like _this,”_ he said with a brusque gesture to his dirty, dusty borrowed clothes. “If you want me to go so badly, can’t you make them clean?”

“I’m a _wizard,”_ Tyki heaved on a weighty sigh, but was already making his way to the blue-painted shelf which continued to vex Link so horribly for his inability to give it cohesive order, “not a drycleaner.” 

Once he was standing in front of the rows on rows of bottles, he blinked at them and said nothing for a long time.

“This is not how I left my spells,” was what he ended up saying.

“No,” Link admitted, half defensive. “You left them in quite the mess.”

“If by ‘mess’ you mean a very specific orderliness,” Tyki returned, lifting a hand and reaching for a small, unmarked jar of deep blue glass, “then yes,” he said, pulling the stopper and surreptitiously sniffing at the mouth of the bottle, “I did.” 

Without much consideration for Link’s organisation, he moved that bottle to one of the uppermost shelves, and took to shuffling and rearranging several more, surreptitiously checking their contents before finding their place, sprinkling powders and dried seeds into a mortar as he went.

“Now,” he said before long, grinding it all into a fine dust with the pestle and carrying the whole thing over to Link, “I might have gotten this horribly wrong, because someone thought it wise to mess with my system, but this _should,”_ he emphasised, tapping the pestel off and lifting the ceramic bowl above Link’s head, “at least clean you up.”

 _“Wait-”_ Link demanded, suddenly petrified by the thought of being turned into a toad, or a worm, or something equally horrible, but Tyki had already upended the spell over him, and all he could do was throw his arms over his head in paltry defence.

Tyki’s laugh was quiet and wonderfully,shamelessly amused. “I’m joking,” he teased, and brushed off the top of Link’s head with delicate, careful fingers. “It’s coriander and star anise. Put these in the pantry, would you?” he said, offering out two small glass bottles filled indeed with dried seeds.

After a moment to collect himself, Link set his lips into an unimpressed line and snatched the jars sharply from Tyki’s hand, turning on his heel in a huff. _“Really,”_ he grumbled out of his own embarrassment, “you’ve no common decency.”

“Not a drop,” Tyki agreed quite happily and made for the door, unapologetic. “And I’d like you to come, filthy or not. I need your opinion on rugs.”

“I still don’t see why this is _quite_ so necessary,” Link insisted, but fell into a meek sort of place behind Tyki at the door, stopping to pull on his freshly brushed shoes, at least. 

“I’m not sure what I was thinking, when I chose that design,” was what Tyki said, turning the handle and pulling the latch to open the door to Kingsbury. “Maybe I wanted to deeply offend myself at a later date. I’ve never much had a fondness for my younger self, and I think the feeling is mutual.”

“You’re insane,” was all Link could think of to say, rushing to keep step beside Tyki for all of the time it took to sink in that he _was_ in Kingsbury, and it _was_ insane, and there was absolutely no way such a reality could exist for him because in all his life he’d never gone two miles out into the moors and even if he ever _were_ to end up in Kingsbury by some absurd twist of fate, he wouldn’t be wearing day-old clothes with grass stains on the knee which quite clearly did not belong to him. 

But there he was.


	2. Chapter 2

The city was ostentatiously baroque, all beige stone and brass fixings on gorgeously engraved facades. Towers and flag posts rose up into the endless sky, and in the distance over the rooftops Link could see the gothic steeple of the Kingsbury Cathedral.  

Then the _people,_ Link realised, wide-eyed, steps faltering. People on people, so gaudily dressed as to remind him of peacocks, but not so derogatory in the least. Gaze flitting from one side of the square to the next, taking in all that exuberant high fashion, Link found himself _desiring._

Riches had never been a dream of opportunity for him, and now, surrounded by so much frivolity, Link discovered in a moment that out of human nature he wished for it, and out of his own nature had fervently denied himself. 

“Ten seconds,” murmured a deep, wonderfully amused voice by his ear, “and you’re already losing yourself. Perhaps I ought to keep you on a leash,” Tyki warned, that lovely cadence of indulgence in his voice, and Link tried not to think too much on the way he hooked their arms together, Link’s hand resting in the crook of his elbow.

“It’s a lot to take in,” he said, a paltry defence when his voice was weak with a wordless kind of wonder. 

“It’s always like this,” Tyki shrugged with an absent wave of his hand, and Link’s eyes caught again quite helplessly on the brilliant flash of gold rings on his dark fingers. 

Letting himself step unobtrusively closer to Tyki’s side, he tried quietly to compare if Tyki fit comfortably with the money and fashion of a Kingsbury crowd. 

His confidence might have done it, had it been something more pompous than self-assured. His clothes might have done it if he didn’t wear his collar quite so loose and his coat so casually. His jewelry might have done it, had it been heavier and shinier. 

But as it was, with his hair pulled over his shoulder in an almost-too-messy tie and that look of catlike self-satisfaction on his face, Link didn’t think there was a crowd on earth he would be happy to blend in with.

What a pair they must make, Link thought as he trotted alongside Tyki across wide roads, all paved in nouveau patterns. A man so obviously something more, followed all too closely by a boy so obviously something less. He couldn’t blame the strange glances that were cast their way here and there, but all they really served to do was to have Link press a touch closer against Tyki’s side and do his best to hear nothing, lest he catch a command that might tear him away from what was, he realised with some small amount of nervous nausea, his only anchor of generosity.

“There, there,” Tyki mocked, and patted Link’s hand in a vapid consolation, “we’re almost there.”

And while it might have been condescension, Link couldn’t help but be glad for the reassurance, despite the intention. So he said nothing, and let Tyki lead him down wide, elegantly winding streets he couldn’t begin to put names to, storefronts all glass and enamel-glazed wood, signs picked in gold lettering. 

A corner bakery caught his eye, tiny wrought iron tables sprawling out onto the street matched with delicate seats, and the rich smell of baked bread laced through with the cloying, familiar scent of melted sugar glaze. His steps faltered for a moment, hand slipping from Tyki’s arm until only his fingertips were caught in the crook of his elbow, all but stopping to take in a sight so familiar it almost felt unreal.

Apprentices served at the counter, the more senior rolled bread beneath their palms with studious focus, brows pinched in familiar concentration. Deeper in the kitchen, Link knew, the decades-dedicated would be icing cakes and dusting pastries, piping meringues with all the delicacy of painting a rose. 

Jaw tight, eyes down, Link clenched his fingers on Tyki’s sleeve and quickened shameful steps to match him. 

“Surely you know,” Tyki said like a tease, ushering him along, “you can’t have pastries before seeing a seamstress.”

“It’s not that,” Link said, subdued, eyes on the red-yellow-beige pavement slipping away beneath this feet, and didn’t dare to elaborate. “I’m not hungry,” he admitted, quiet and quite honest for the way his stomach had gone cold and tight as a fist.

He imagined he could feel Tyki’s attention flicker to him, consideration in a keen glance, but he didn’t say anything and nor did Link until Tyki gently pulled them to a halt outside one of the stores Link had stopped himself from peering into so thoughtlessly.

“Gill’s,” he read blankly, blinking up at the shiny black sign, the simple name bordered with an equally simple deco design. “That sounds familiar,” he considered, brows pinching, head tilting.

“I should hope so,” Tyki almost seemed to mock, taking the polished brass door handle and holding it open for Link to step in. “Grandmother Gill is the most renowned couturier in Ingary.”

“You call her Grandmother?” Link asked, for some reason surprised. Tyki didn’t strike him as one to refer to people with such familiarity.

Rather, he struck Link as one to address his own mother by her first name. 

“Everyone does,” he said simply, letting the door swing closed behind them and brushing forwards with a guiding hand pressed between Link’s shoulder blades. Ducking close, words murmured like a teasing secret behind Link’s ear, he confided, “I don’t think she even has a name, anymore.”

“None that she’d give the likes of you,” Link retorted, prim, and Tyki’s silent laugh breathed across his cheek. 

“I’m not a _demon,_ Link,” he enunciated, slow and lax and indulgent in his lazy amusement, hand sliding almost absentmindedly to drape over Link’s shoulder. “I don’t need your name to ruin you.”

“Is that a threat?” he asked, mild, not thinking it in the least.

“A reassurance,” Tyki offered, and Link felt his shrug like a weight around his shoulders. “Or maybe an entreaty.” Eyes slipping down to catch Link’s, burnished bronze, or something richer in laughter. _ “Link  _ is hardly a name I’d give a third son. Something more unfortunate, I think,” he mused, guiding Link absently to the high reception of rich, polished mahogany, letting his arm fall from Link’s shoulders so he could rest his elbow flat on the lovely red-brown wood, fingers laced and ankles crossed like he had all the time in the world for teasing. 

“Humphrey,” he said, lips a sharp, horrible grin. “Or Wallace. _Link_ is almost respectable.”

“And what,” Link asked, “makes you think I’m a third son?”

Tyki blinked as though Link had surprised him, and then cocked a brow. “I can’t imagine how else you would befall such horrible luck.”

Link's eyes shifted away, enough of a giving tell that Tyki’s grin slunk back across his face. 

“Morgan,” Tyki prodded, “Hubert- _no,”_ he gasped, an expression of horrified, thrilled excitement filling him. _“Allen?”_

 _“Why,”_ Link demanded, “would you name a demon _Allen?”_

Tyki’s horrible excitement settled, simmered, reduced into something just as horribly self-satisfied, eyes gone narrow with sly smugness. “I told him it was one of the most terrifying names I knew.”

“Did you ever tell him the truth?” Link hazarded to ask.

Tyki’s eyes slipped closed, shoulders shaking with silent laughter as he shook his head. “He has no idea.”

“You’re awful,” Link said.

“Aren’t I,” Tyki agreed, entirely too happy with himself.

Lips pressed tight and unamused, Link decided, “I think he deserves better.”

“A better name?”

“A better  _ wizard,”  _ he corrected with a stern little frown.

“And I, a better demon,” Tyki agreed, reaching out to tap the service bell on the desk, “but you know, things like that don’t happen by chance.”

A confused frown drew Links brows together, but before he could so much as open his mouth to ask what Tyki meant, a crisp reprimand was cast down from the top of the sleek, polished staircase which lead up to a loft of tailoring and pret a porter and the like. 

“Do you know  _ how  _ to make an appointment?” the woman standing at the top of those stairs demanded, imperially impetuous. 

“How, certainly,” Tyki returned, a grin splitting his face. “But I figure you always have time for me.”

_ “Luck,”  _ she emphasised, stepping with graceful ease down the stairs, despite kitten heels and a perfectly pressed navy-blue pencil skirt, “is what it is. That, or you drive my customers away moments before I come to see what you want.”

“Lovely to see you too, Missus Gill,” Tyki returned, grin still curling at the corners of his lips, and when she offered her hand, he stood himself straight and took it carefully in his, stepped in to press a chaste kiss to her cheek. 

“You look awful,” she scowled when he stepped back, flicking a delicate kerchief from the sleeve of her fine blouse and dashing it across her cheek. “Pretty clothes don’t hide unwashed hair. You need a barber, not a couturier.”

“Funny,” Tyki mocked graciously, “but as always, I’m perfect, thank you. I’ve brought you a project,” he said, and lifted a finger in a subtle, lazy gesture to Link.

Grandmother Gill only seemed to see him then for the first time, and Link almost shrank away and melted into the rich, plush red carpet at the way her nose twitched in a quiet expression of effective disgust, sharp brown eyes running shredly over his filthy clothes from behind half-moon glasses, hung around her slender neck with a fine gold chain.

A short, sharp sigh huffed from her nose, and she turned back to Tyki to say, “I don’t have time for this,” like she couldn’t bear to address Link himself. 

It stung a bit like shame, and an awkward flush was burning uncomfortable beneath his collar. 

“You do,” Tyki insisted, unconcerned. “Find him a style, and I can do the rest.”

She pulled in a careful breath, pretty narrow lips pursed in consideration, and shot another chilling glance to Link before checking the delicate watch on her wrist. 

Quick, efficient, busy, she brushed past them, giving Link an unsubtle berth, around the counter through a dark curtain which fell closed rich and heavy, and called after herself, “You’re lucky I always have time for you, Camelot.”

Quietly, relenting to the hand Tyki placed between his shoulders to usher him after Gill, Link muttered, “How many names do you  _ have?” _

“Enough to avoid responsibility regarding any of them,” Tyki answered simply, drawing back the curtain for him to step into the fitting area, lit a bright contrast to the dark reception but no less rich for the neat wood finishings and walls paneled with glass mirrors.

“Strip,” was the first thing Gill said to him, already drawing back one of those panels so it slid open to a luxuriously deep walk-in closet absolutely filled with suits and vests and waistcoats and slacks, and more than a few racks of high-polished shoes. 

“I’m sorry?” Link demanded, that flush creeping up his cheeks, taunting him with a dozen reflections of himself and how ragged-awful he really looked, swamped in those filthy too-big farm clothes, shoulders curled painfully tight against the unrepentant need to follow commands.

“You don’t expect her to dress you while you’re wearing  _ that,  _ do you?” Tyki taunted, wrinkling his nose in a teasing mockery of the way she had earlier. “Come on, Huckleberry,” he said, his grin teasing Link from every angle, “work with us here.”

_ “Huckleberry,”  _ Gill muttered to herself, delicate disgust, while she immersed herself in flicking through the fine slacks on the centre row. “Third son, no doubt.”

“That’s not my name,” Link refuted, fingers twisting painfully into the hem of his shirt. 

“Right,” Tyki laughed at him, sprawling across one of the red velvet lounges and digging through one of the inner pockets of his coat for a cigarette and a slim, silver box that fit comfortably in the palm of his hand. “Twain would never write about you “ he nodded somber agreement, flicking the box open to reveal a flame hiding inside, lighting his cigarette with unconcerned ease. “Not nearly adventurous enough.”

“Twain?” Link repeated, unable to resist asking just as he was unable to resist the way that awful curse of his was making him lift his shirt over his head and drop it on the floor beside him.

Tyki snorted a laugh, tastelessly amused, and said, “You should read a book sometime, farm boy,” by way of answer. 

“Even I have no idea what you’re talking about, Camelot,” Gill sniffed haughtily, shifting several sets of pants onto a rolling rack and dragging it along with her, further into the wardrobe. “What are your measurements?” she demanded, still refusing to look at Link.

“My…?” he stumbled, glancing at Tyki for some sort of unhelpful assistance.

“Waist,” Tyki offered, legs kicked out lazily in front of him, crossed at the ankle, “shoulder to shoulder, shoulder to hip, hip to ankle.”

“I’m not, uh,” Link floundered, looking quickly between the two of them before settling on, “sure.”

A long, quiet, exasperated sigh came from deep in the wardrobe, and Tyki heaved himself to his feet with no small amount of ceremony, pulled a slim notebook from his pocket, plucked up a tape coiled in a basket full of pincushions and such, and strung it out between his hands. 

“Pants off,” he commanded around the cigarette hanging from his lips, Link blushing a furious, almost insulted red when he had no choice but to work at his fly, heavy, loose pants slipping down his legs while Tyki carefully framed his shoulders between his fingertips, the cold touch of the tape on Link’s back drawing a shudder up his spine. 

“Stand straight,” Tyki murmured, almost distracted, and Link pulled his shoulders back, lifted his chin. A quiet, approving hum from Tyki, and he moved to measure down Link’s arm, and then the length of his back, pausing periodically to write the figures down for Gill. 

Link swallowed thick and nervous when Tyki snaked the tape around his hips, and was almost relieved to have him take a knee to measure the length of his leg. 

Finished, Tyki rose and turned to coil up the tape, drop it back where he’d found it, and tear the page from the book. While he busied himself with slumping back down in a graceless heap to studiously fold the paper in on itself again and again, twisting it between his hands, Link tried to find some position of awkward comfort, standing in his underpants in a room with two near-strangers, surrounded by altogether far too many mirrors. 

A surreptitious glance back at Tyki showed he’d folded the page into a paper crane, just then tucking the head down to form its beak and pulling at its wings to give the body some shape. And then he pulled the cigarette from between his lips, blew smoke beneath those wings, and had it flutter up from his hand, sail across the fitting room and into the wardrobe, not too long followed by an almost-irritable, “Thank you, Camelot. I understand walking over and handing me a sheet of paper yourself is  _ far  _ too much trouble.”

“Welcome,” was all Tyki called back, perfectly self-satisfied, and tilted his head against the back of the couch, smoke between his lips, watching it curl up towards the ceiling. 

There was silence, and then a considerably appreciative sound. “Not as bad as I’d thought,” Gill said, followed by the clatter of hangers being shifted along a rack.

“Come see for yourself,” Tyki suggested, a quiet laugh directed at the ceiling. 

Link shifted uncomfortably, and Gill strode out of the wardrobe pulling the rack alongside her, eyes as determined as her steps when she gave Link a long look up and down.

“Could be worse,” she said, and Tyki scoffed another laugh. 

_ “Could be worse,”  _ he mocked, sitting up to prop his elbows on his knees. “Show us what you’ve got, then,” he suggested, lifting his cigarette to his lips.

“I’d generally start with the worst,” she sighed like it was a great, awful burden and held out a pair of slim pressed pants for Link to take, “but from  _ that,  _ even nudity is an improvement.”

“Markedly,” Tyki commented, catching Link’s eye with a sly, awful grin that had him fumbling to pull those lovely black pants on as quickly as he could, the amusement of Tyki’s quiet laugh tickling in his ears. 

“You’ve an eye for colour,” Gill seemed to sigh, flicking quickly through hangars for a crisp shirt with a traditional point collar, “so I’ll leave that to you.” She held the shirt up against Link’s chest, and he made as though to take it from her, but before he could so much as catch the cuff she’d whisked it away for another, this one button-down. With a tilt of her head, she asked, “Boy, or man?”

“Man,” Link answered for himself with a scowl, immediately overridden by Tyki’s laughter.

“Boy,” he corrected, thriving off the offended glare Link shot him. “Definitely a boy.”

Gill gave an appraising hum and put the button-down back, hesitated over the shoulders of several styles, cutting short glances back to Link before she settled on, “Band collar, then.”

“Really?” Tyki demanded, skeptical. Gill arched a scathing brow at him. “It’s a bit,” he gestured vaguely, “old? Boring,” he tried.

“Poor,” Gill corrected, pulling a shirt off one of the hangers and holding it out on her fingertips for Link to take. “Trust me,” she emphasised, “I know how to make poor look expensive. Lord knows I do it for you every month or so.”

Tyki breathed a reluctant sigh, but caved with the promise that, “One day you’ll grow tired of trying to insult me.”

“And on that day,” she supplied, batting Link’s hands away from his collar and pinning it with a simple gold cap, “you’ll get out of your wheelchair and do a dance. Here,” she said, taking Link by the shoulders and turning him to face Tyki. 

He let out a long sound of consideration, fingers tracing his lower lip before suggesting, “Link, would you tuck your shirt in? There’s a good boy.” After a moment he blew out a sigh, tilted his head this way and that. “The pants have to go,” he decided at length. “Black is far too serious.”

“I’ll leave you in charge of that,” Gill stated, brushing past with another busy glance at her watch. “I have a bridal party to finish tailoring by this evening, so if you think you might need my assistance, feel free to figure it out yourself.”

“Thank you for your help, Missus Gill,” Tyki murmured without standing, careful eyes unwavering from Link, busy drifting over every inch of him. Quick with purpose, she breezed out of the room, and Tyki let smoke trail like consideration from his lips, sitting in appreciative silence while Link shifted his weight, nervous.

At great length he stood from his seat, meandered slowly towards Link. Something about the way he circled behind him, eyes never leaving Link’s body for where Link followed his gaze through the mirrors, felt somewhat like he was being sized up to eat.

Voice quiet when he came to stand behind Link, private in a way that brought a blush to Link’s cheeks and had something in the pit of his stomach tremble with some kind of hollowed-out expectation, Tyki murmured, “Would you take those pants off for me, Link?” in such a way that had Link’s nervous fingers fluttering immediately for his fly, despite that Tyki had phrased it so carefully as a request rather than a command.

He was almost shaky-nervous, working them down his thighs, cutting glances to Tyki’s reflections as he went. He wasn’t sure if he should be relieved that Tyki’s attention had been taken with the array of pants Gill had pulled out on the rack, but he was certain he shouldn’t have been disappointed. 

“These,” Tyki suggested, unclipping dove-grey slacks from their hanger and folding them over his arm for Link to take once he’d stepped out of the others, eyes still averted, distracted, scanning over the racks of shoes and hooked belts at the front of the wardrobe. Link bit his cheek, took the pants, kept his eyes low while he pulled them on. It was nothing. Nothing to get flustered over, nothing to huff about. Nothing nothing nothing. Right.

He tucked his shirt in, this time. Rolled his shoulders and straightened his collar, fixed his cuffs so Tyki wouldn’t have to correct him twice. 

“Belt, or suspenders?” was what he asked, coming back with each in his hand. A wry smile curled on his lips, his eyes flicked up to catch Link’s and he corrected himself, “Boy, or man?”

“Belt,” Link answered with a short glare, much to Tyki’s amusement.

“I tend to agree,” he admitted, hanging the belt over the rack regardless and offering up the suspenders instead, “but we might as well make sure.”

Grudgingly, Link slipped them over his shoulders and clipped them to the front of his pants, pretending very staunchly that he didn’t notice Tyki taking care of the back. That, he certainly noticed. 

“Oh, wow,” was the verdict - and not a good  _ oh wow,  _ at that. “I can’t tell if you’re meant to be delivering my paper or shining my shoes.”

_ “Belt,”  _ Link gritted amidst Tyki’s laughter, holding out his hand staunchly.

“Belt it is,” he agreed through his amusement, releasing the back of the suspenders for Link and dragging out the measure of rich brown leather between his hands. “Something to consider,” he murmured, reaching around Link’s chest to hold the brass buckle beneath the gold pin at his throat, comparing the two all but identical shades in the mirror, “black steel might work just as well. Perhaps for a different shirt, though.”

He slipped his hands down and Link lifted his arms out of the way, some kind of nervous when Tyki’s fingers found the tail of the belt, and the loop just to the left of his fly. Stomach churning with trepidatious alarm, he assured, stiff, “I think I can put my own belt on, thank you.”

“I think,” Tyki countered, watching his hands in the mirror while he threaded it through, “you’re all too likely to buckle it to the right.” He stepped back a breath, looked down between them to catch the loops at Link’s back, coiled around his hips and threaded the tail through the brass buckle. Eyes skating past Link’s fluttering chest, he cinched it firm, and pinned it home. He looked up then, fingertips lingering at Link’s hips, teasing the tapered end of the belt. “Always thread it to the left,” he murmured, quiet surety.

Link swallowed, nodded, and Tyki’s fingers slipped away. 

“I have a feeling,” he said, striding back to the deep wardrobe, dark hands drifting over the stern shoulders of the jackets there, “that you have a peculiar talent for making old styles seem classic, rather than outdated.”

“What makes you think so?” Link asked, turning to watch him peruse the options before, deciding they weren’t what he wanted, moving on to a rack solely for vests and waistcoats. 

“A band collar is a strange choice,” he hummed, distracted, still puffing away at that cigarette, “particularly eschewing the pin-on collar. Very…” he twisted his lips in considerate distaste before settling on, “working class. But Gill knows what she’s doing,” he said, picking out a fine woven grey vest, and gestured to Link as a whole as though he were the proof of it, “clearly. And I have a feeling that tweed,” he held up the hanger for himself to see, lifted against Link’s chest, “might not be a step in the wrong direction.”

Carefully, Link reached to slip the arms from the hanger, let it drip from his fingertips when he turned to face that uninhibited stretch of mirrors. He almost didn’t recognise himself. 

Heavy braid falling down his back, the gold in his straw hair picked out by the pin sitting at his throat, the gleam of the brass belt buckle. A neat collar, tidy shoulders, clean cuffs. He felt absurdly more like himself than he had in a long time, and at the same time completely foreign. Tweed and fine linen was a far cry from the starched pastel-pink button-up of Cesaris uniform. 

He’d… thought it neat, back then. Tidy.

‘Back then’, like it hadn’t been five days at most since he’d last worn that uniform. Last, as in,  _ last.  _ As in, never again. 

And there he was, holding a tweed vest against his shoulders, blinking blankly at a him that he barely recognised, in the fitting room of the best couturier in the country. Eyes locked with his own reflection, Link slipped his arms into the vest, buttoned it. 

It fit, more or less, perfectly.

Tyki was standing there, behind Link. Thumb tracing over his lower lip, cigarette burned down between his fingers. Just looking, with a curious expression in his eyes. 

“What?” Link demanded.

Tyki glanced up, met him in the mirror like he’d forgotten Link had eyes - or, Link supposed to himself, that he hadn’t expected anything to be said about where he attention fell. 

“You look good,” he said. Just that. Simple, almost plain. Attention caving to distraction, Tyki’s gaze slipped down Link’s chest, hips, legs. Lingered somewhere around his waist. “Really good.”

Link found he had even less to say than the offended, reprimanding scowl he’d been mustering as response. Looked at his reflection, all neat lines and fitted clothes. Quiet, sincere, he murmured, “Thank you,” for more reasons than one, because he’d never had much experience looking  _ good.  _

Good  _ enough,  _ yes, but there was a difference. Of course there was a difference. 

“Okay,” Tyni announced, brushing off his own appraisal, turning to disappear back into the wardrobe. “Put that aside, if you would. Shirt off.”

Carefully, reluctant for a different reason now, Link fiddled with the buttons of the vest before pushing them through, slipped it off his shoulders and folded it carefully over the lounge. The shirt followed not long after, slipping down his arms to catch in the crook of his elbows before cascading to the floor in a light flutter. He was interrupted in dipping to pick it up by the quiet sound of Tyki’s amusement, and he cut a sharp glance to him.

_ “What?”  _ he demanded a second time, standing brusquely and brushing off the shirt before folding it neat and tidy, placing it atop the vest. 

“Well,” Tyki huffed, gesturing vaguely to Link’s lower body, “you have an ass. Hardly expected that.”

Abashed, incensed flush dusting his cheeks pink, Link snapped, “These pants are rather  _ tight.” _

“Good,” Tyki shrugged, and held up two neat shirts - this, a light cerulean, that a powder pink. “Which would you like first?”

“Blue,” Link answered quickly. Too quickly. Averted his eyes from the pink, a shade too close to familiar. 

Tyki huffed a quiet sigh and relented, hanging the pink on the rack and taking the blue off its velvet hanger, a quiet mutter of, “Coward,” falling past his lips. 

“I’m sorry?” Link bit out, tension fluttering like nervous anxiety in his fingers when he snatched the shirt from Tyki’s fingers and threaded his arms through the sleeves.

“It’s not  _ conventional,”  _ Tyki allowed with a vague roll of his eyes, “but you’d wear it well.”

Link turned away in a tight huff, fixing the shirt up beneath the button-down collar, still unable to avoid Tyki in his frustration for the too-many mirrors paving the walls. Tyki had him change his pants again, to the warm black he’d first worn, and came back with the promised black steel belt. Link found himself rather enamoured by the crisp cleanliness of that look, smoothing his fingers down the enamel buttons, rich cotton. 

Tyki lifted the pink shirt out, disregarding Link’s reprimanding glare, and held it up before his chest, hands resting over Link’s shoulders. “It compliments you,” he murmured, eyes on Link’s in the mirror. “Makes your skin and hair seem lighter, makes your eyes look darker.”

“I don’t,” Link started, reluctant, eyes falling away, determination wavering.

“I won’t make you,” Tyki reassured, his quiet laugh catching behind Link’s ear, “but I’d like you to try.” Quiet, murmured like entreatied indulgence, he asked, “For me?”

Heart in his throat, Link made the mistake of glancing up. Tyki’s lips all but pressed to the side of his head, dark fingers spread in contrast against the soft pink shirt, over Link’s shoulders. Warm. He was… wonderfully warm. Link could feel the heat of his body simmering against his back, and had to blink, swallow down the urge to lean into his hands, to press himself against Tyki’s chest and--

He caught himself, breath trembling. And, what? See the contrast of those dark hands on his light skin? 

Link tightened his jaw, shrugged delicately out of Tyki’s hold, caught the shirt with a hand pressed to his chest. Muttered, “Okay,” with heat in his cheeks, burning in the pit of his stomach, and wondered if he should blame Tyki’s magic for it, or his own pathetic necessity for trusting him. 

He stepped away, lay the shirt on the lounge, and worked at the buttons of the one he was wearing. Let it slip down his arms, to have his breath catch in his throat when Tyki caught the collar between his fingers, carefully pulled it from Link’s wrists, hands. 

Link stood where he was, locked still, as Tyki attentively folded the cerulean shirt and plucked up the pink, shook it out, and held it open. 

Eyes slipping closed, fingertips too warm and something like nerves pooling under his tongue, Link turned his back to Tyki, stretched out his arms to have Tyki pull the light summer-linen shirt over his arms. Skin alive to the subtle slide of fabric. He kept his eyes closed to Tyki stepping around him, fingers lingering at his shoulder, brushing the lightest touch against his neck. Heat flooding beneath his skin, he let his arms fall unresisting to his sides and let Tyki’s indulgent fingers work slowly down his chest, sliding the buttons home. 

“Almost better than having you shirtless,” was the teasing murmur, Tykis hands a lingering weight at the hem. “Would you like to see?”

Link shook his head, mute, but let his eyes slip open regardless. A sliver, and then more. Glanced uncertainty over Tyki’s shoulder to find his cheeks flushed with a shade almost identical to the shirt he wore. Saw his collar, his shoulder, his cuff.

“Do you like it?” Tyki asked, voice distracted with his admiration so as to appear gentle.

Link nodded, if it could be called that. A short downward tilt of his chin, eyes averted. The most he could see of his own reflection was Tyki’s back. A slice of dark skin framed by a white collar and the curl of black hair pulled over his shoulder. He swallowed and murmured with a tongue turned numb from those nerves which had been collecting beneath it, “Thank you.”

Did he owe Tyki, then? For all that? Link lowered his eyes, traced the elegant, sloping hem of the shirt between his thumb and forefinger. It couldn’t be cheap. It couldn’t be  _ reasonable. _

“You don’t…” he started, stopped. Glanced up at Tyki, cautious refusal. “You don’t have to. I don’t expect…”  _ anything,  _ “any of this.”

Tyki blinked at him, almost surprised. Almost taken aback. Almost offended. “Expectation has nothing to do with it,” he said, quite eloquently. “I simply want to.” Fingertips at Link’s jaw, a warm breath of a touch. “Will you let me?”

From the tight knot in Link’s stomach and the hollowness of his mouth, he found it difficult to remind himself that any of Allen’s warnings regarding the intention of Tyki’s affections were perfectly reasonable, and likely geared towards this exact brand of… of, what?

Link swallowed his heart back down his throat, and decided not to think about it. Dropped his eyes away and only managed to demur, “If that’s what you want.”

“What I want,” Tyki echoed, breathed a quiet laugh and brushed past. “Perhaps we shouldn’t bring all that into the equation.”

A blush flooded to Link’s cheeks like a headrush, and he opened his mouth to refute any of it, but found himself at quite a loss for words. Throat tight, mouth dry, he managed to force out, stiff in his awkward, furious embarrassment, “If that’s everything…” and left his words trailing like smoke from Tyki’s cigarette, fingers moving down the buttons of the shirt, eyes on the rich carpet so he wouldn’t have to see himself wearing it. 

“These,” was all Tyki said, picking a pair of shoes from the rack and presenting them to Link - brown wingtip brogues, pinprick perforations stippled across the rich leather.

“No,” was Link’s immediate, instinctive reaction as he shrugged the linen off his shoulders, because shirts and pants were one thing and Link could  _ pretend  _ he didn’t know they were worth more than anything he’d lain hands on before. But he’d worn far too many shoes down to holes in the heel to know even the cheap ones were above his pay. 

“Yes,” was all Tyki said, stooping to pick up Link’s shoes and check the size before nodding, replacing them with the brogues and hanging the clothes Link had arrived in over his arm. “Get dressed,” he murmured, a command made almost intoxicatingly gentle, thumb dragging across the back of Link’s neck, down the dip of his spine, pink shirt hanging numb from his fingers. “In the tweed. I’ll let Gill know we’re done.”

Throat tight, heart trembling for some ridiculous, absurd, painful reason, Link managed to breathe, “Okay,” to the sound of Tyki already brushing out of the room. Carefully, eyes distracted from his own reflection, Link held the pink shirt up before him. Set his trembling jaw, folded it neat. Slipped the buckle of his belt free and peeled the fitted pants down his legs. Folded those, shook out the white shirt Gill had first put on him, and watched his reflection button it up. 

A creeping feeling of disappointed self-flagellation and something curling sick and nervous in his stomach.

Absurdly, each movement of fixing the pin to his collar and tucking the shirt into his pants, cinching the brass-buckle belt to the left and slipping the vest over his shoulders - it all had Link feeling less and less like he had no plan for what he was going to do. Not quite calm, but reassured somewhat by the way his reflection held the quality of someone he might be, but never expected to be. 

He looked down at the plush carpet, glanced between his bare feet and the shoes Tyki had left on the floor beside him. Crouched down and pulled the bar-tied laces loose, and slipped his feet into the perfect fit without so much reluctance as he imagined would be clinging to his fingertips, slippery and drab. 

One last glance cast over his shoulder at a refinedly impassive expression, Link slipped out of the fitting room and let the curtain fall closed heavy behind him. Tyki was waiting there, leaning against the reception. Bored eyes flashed up to catch on appreciative intrigue when he saw Link. Eyes read him up and down, and a small smile curled at his lips. 

“Gill will have someone bring the rest,” he said, alight eyes settling on Link’s face. “Should we go?” he offered, pushing away from the desk and making for the door, holding it open for Link to step through.

He hesitated for a moment, and then another, and found he actually had to wonder  _ why.  _ But glancing at Tyki, and looking out at the foot traffic passing before the shop, and hearing the bustle of chatter that came with a city full of  _ people,  _ Link found he was altogether too nervous- too  _ reluctant  _ to want to leave the momentary relief of sanct privacy. Paranoia, those indiscernible voices creeping up his spine, tickling his ears. 

Gill, in her brusque efficiency, had really only reminded him that despite Tyki’s efforts to allow him his free will, there was little enough consideration from people who didn’t  _ know.  _ And if they did, he could imagine there weren’t many who would be quite so considerate.

_ Come upstairs, Link. Stay the night. _

“Something wrong?”

Link blinked away from the street, glanced at Tyki. Masked his surprise. Realised he had his teeth digging into his cheek and forced himself to relax his jaw, tongue darting out to wet his dry lips. “I’m just,” he said, unhelpful, and gestured vaguely outside, didn’t know how to make himself say  _ scared.  _ Not to someone like Tyki.

Didn’t know how to admit it, even, to himself. Despite it being the truth. 

The gentle curve of Tyki’s smile told Link he understood completely and he stepped away from the door, held it with one hand and gestured for Link with the other. Draped a somewhat protective arm over Link’s shoulders so they could step out together. 

Amidst the crowd, Link shrank against Tyki’s side, nervous eyes darting around suspiciously. Terrified of ghosts.

_ Stay the night. _

“You know,” Tyki murmured, head dipped to speak quietly against the side of Link’s head, ushering him slowly along the street with lazy steps, “no-one could possibly pose more of a threat to you than I already do.” Something uncoiled from around Link’s tight lungs, some knot coming loose, and he sucked in a long, slow breath. Nodded. Quiet, slow, measured reassurance, Tyki reasoned, “We’re miles away from the moors. And regardless,” he added with a cheap, teasing laugh, “I’m the most powerful, terrifying wizard in the world, remember?”

“Nobody said that,” Link refuted with a scowl, the tension curled tight in his shoulders falling away with each word, each step along that street. 

“Plenty of people say that,” Tyki said, waving it away in an unconcerned gesture, gold rings flashing pretty on his fingers in the sun. 

Dry, scathing amusement curling unwilling into Link’s voice, he reminded, “I think Grandmother Gill would be the  _ last  _ person to say it.”

“She’s a couturier,” Tyki huffed with a grand roll of his eyes, hand slipping from around Link’s shoulders to rest against his back. “The worst she can do is destroy my self esteem.”

A brow arched, Link commented blithely, “A deadly blow, to the likes of you.”

Tyki laughed at that - light and charmed and completely unconcerned by any threats, imagined or real. “My, Link,” he mocked, indulgently amused, the last of that nervous nausea unfolding from Link’s chest, “it seems you have me all figured out.” 

And there his steps slowed to a stop and Link turned to glance back at him, head tilted in a question. 

“No rush,” Tyki said, and it sounded like a tease. “We’ll get a milkshake,” he said, and inclined his he head to the corner bakery with the delicate tables and wrought chairs which Link thought he’d been doing quite a fine job of not thinking about. “Strawberry?”

“Banana,” he said out of reflex, hardly having consigned himself to the thought of a milkshake, of all things - or the thought of having a milkshake outside a storefront that smelled so familiar as to be home.

A home he’d been doing quite a fine job of not thinking about.

“Strawberry is a bit…” he said, and wrinkled his nose a little as though to finish that sentence. “Childish.”

Tyki arched a brow.

Link supposed it was foolish to imply any kind of milkshake could be any more or less childish than any other.

“Do you think you’re a grown up, Link?” Tyki asked, and there was a strange cadence to the question that had Link unsure of if he was being made fun of. The words themselves certainly made him want to sink his expression into one of sour distaste, but the way Tyki said them and that look in his eye - that intrigued, invested, appraising kind of look - made Link think that maybe he simply wasn’t used to phrasing honesty.

“I think,” Link said, eyes flicking quite without permission to the bakery, and just as quickly back to Tyki, “I think anyone who's left home would be some degree of adult, simply by default.”

“Do you think so?” Tyki asked, tilted his head a touch.

“I believe so, yes,” Link confirmed, setting his jaw in that way he did when he decided he was in agreeance with something.

“What I mean is,” Tyki said, and paced half a step closer, eyes flicking down to Link’s chest for all of half a moment before darting up to catch his gaze, “do you think you are no longer a child?” he emphasised, voice rich and lovely with some amusement Link couldn’t quite place. “Do you think you can no longer enjoy childish things?”

“I think,” Link started to say, and found he couldn’t quite hold the intrigued amusement in Tyki’s expression. Let his gaze drop and fall away, and wondered with some frustration why he felt the need to explain himself at all. “I think,” he said again, trying to be firm in his conviction, “if I were to waste time with things like that, I’d have less time for more important things.”

“Adult things?” Tyki asked, and he was definitely teasing this time. “Maybe I should put it like this,” he said, stepping beside Link and draping an arm around his shoulders, unhurriedly guiding him through the delicate, spindly chairs to the storefront. “Do you have anywhere to be right now?”

“Well,” Link said, with the feeling that Tyki would wait with a mocking sort of patience until he admitted, “not exactly, no.”

“So,” he continued, meandering to the counter, “would you like a milkshake?”

Link’s lips twisted and pursed a little, feeling as though he’d have any excuses explained away. “If you insist,” he said, because Tyki was clearly very adamant about this endeavor and Link was clearly not someone who could let him down with a simple, firm, _ No, thank you. _

“And you’re stuck on banana?” Tyki teased, stepping behind Link with his hands on his shoulders to shepherd him towards the counter.

“Very much so,” Link confirmed. 

He could hear the mocking grin in Tyki’s voice when he ordered for them over Link’s head, hands a lovely, warm weight at Link’s shoulders. His attention drifted to the display, and he found he was leaning just a breath into Tyki’s touch and the way he traced his thumbs absentmindedly across Link’s shoulders as he spoke. 

“Tart?” Tyki murmured, low, close to his ear, and Link started with a short jolt.

“I’m sorry?” he demanded, a breath away from offence, and turned his head to scowl at Tyki - almost a mistake, for how close their faces were. 

“Would you like a tart,” he enunciated, rather taken with taking his amusement at Link’s expense.

“You don’t have to,” he said - probably exactly the point, from the condescending little smile Tyki’s amusement melted into.

“And a lime curd tart,” he said to the apprentice at the counter without further discussion on the matter. “Please,” he added like he thought it was funny, those little pleasantries. A man not used to manners.

“This is all completely unnecessary,” Link said, averting his eyes as Tyki passed coin over his shoulder.

“It’d take all the fun out if it weren’t, don’t you think?” Tyki said, and pulled Link back under his arm to guide him to a table some ways away from the other customers. 

He didn’t pull Link’s seat out - which, for a moment, struck him as odd.

Then he reminded himself it wasn’t odd at all, and sat by his own means. 

The way Tyki watched him was dreadfully uncomfortable. Hand in his chin, eyes lazy and low like he wanted to figure Link out, or maybe just watch him squirm. It was impossible to tell - and, Link was beginning to realise, was  _ always _ impossible to tell. Whether he was thinking, or just watching. Just waiting. Just bored.

“Why lime?” Link tried to ask, not sure how to have Tyki look at anything else.

“Why banana?” he countered, a slow blink, a quiet smile, and didn’t lift his chin from his hand.

Link’s lips twitched, bit back a breath. “It’s my favourite,” he said like it was just that simple.

“Funny,” Tyki said, his intrigue counterproductively lit in the cant of his smile. “Same.”

A frown flickered across Link’s brow. “Banana, or lime?” he asked.

Tyki sat back, draped one arm over the back of his chair, laced his fingers together. Pushed his lips in a wordless shrug, lazy. Cat’s eyes unwavering from Link, keen.  _ Doesn’t matter. _

Doesn’t matter, when he’s playing with a half-truth like it’s half mouse.

Link swallowed back the words he didn’t have, and looked across the street. Cobbler, tailor, corsetmaker. 

“You seem a bit on edge, Link.” 

Link closed his eyes and pulled in a purposeful breath. Almost wished he hadn’t, for the way honey scones and sourdough pooled heady beneath his tongue. 

“I’d suggest you take a moment to relax,” Tyki said, “but that doesn’t seem to be your style.”

Link opened his eyes, kept them on his hands. Reached for the delicate silver fork, twirled it against the table. Set it back, and pinched a corner of the cloth napkin it rested on to polish away the clumsy tarnish of his fingers.

“You worked in a bakery, did you say?”

Link turned the fork over, so its prongs curved like a bridge to press four weighted divots into the napkin. 

“Did you have milkshakes, there?” Tyki asked, and Link glanced up - almost surprised.

“Sorry?”

“Just thinking,” Tyki shrugged like he hadn’t been thinking at all. “For some reason it struck me that you might enjoy one, on your break. A milkshake and a tart.”

Link swallowed again, and something trembled down his spine. Eyes on Tyki’s shoulder, on his absently laced fingers. Elegant. Shining rings lovely on dark skin. 

“I prefer custard,” he said at length, watching Tyki’s thumbs brush past one another, “actually.”

“That so?” Tyki asked, enchantedly intrigued. 

“Or strawberry shortcake.”

Tyki’s laugh was quiet, and he ducked his head as though impossibly charmed. “You’ll eat it, but not drink it,” he said, and Link’s fingers tightened in his lap. “Now, why’s that?” he asked, and Link found he was quite relieved that Tyki was too taken with another thought to expect an answer. “I think,” he considered, head tilted, a smile curling at his lips, “you try awfully hard to make yourself seem more of an adult.”

“More of an adult than I am?” Link found himself asking.

“I suppose,” Tyki allowed, “yes.”

“Is there a point to that thought?” 

“It’d be quite a useless thought if there wasn’t,” Tyki reasoned, wonderfully indulgent of Link’s stiff posture and short words. “Enjoy your palate,” he said even as their drinks were placed unobtrusively before them, the lime pie in the centre of the table. “Tastes change. Tomorrow, you might find you like banana.”

Link blinked at him, frowned at him. Glanced down at the dessert glass before him. Vanilla ice and whipped cream topped an ostentatiously powder-pink drink, lines of strawberry syrup dribbling down the inside of the glass.

“I didn’t ask for this,” Link said, fingers at the base of his glass as though he were about to push it away. 

“Funny,” Tyki said simply, pulling his tan iced drink closer - a coffee. “This is exactly what I asked for. Would you like me to call him back?” he asked, already turning for the apprentice, making as though to lift his hand and hail him.

_“No,”_ Link snapped, aghast, hand darting out to catch Tyki’s wrist. “It clearly,” he started, and then stopped, jaw pulled tight. “It clearly wasn’t their mistake,” he said, eyes heavy on Tyki with a light frown.

“Clearly, then,” Tyki said, lowering his hand to the table, fingers brushing warm and light against the upturned underside of Link’s forearm, elbow resting on the table, leaning over his drink as though his quiet voice was saying something very important indeed, “it wasn’t a mistake at all.”

“You seem to know an awful lot,” Link said, uncurling his fingers from Tyki’s wrist and pulling his hand away - feeling too much, too much, the soft drag of Tyki’s fingertips across his skin, “but only half of what’s important.”

“So tell me, then,” Tyki entreated, empty hand curling in on itself, retreating beneath his chin, “what’s important about strawberry?”

Words ripped like sandpaper across his tongue, Link said, “It’s my favourite,” and locked his jaw so sharp he almost tasted copper. “It,” he said carefully, slowly, eyes on the drink in front of him, “used to be. My favourite.” A jump in his jaw, a nervous, crawling sensation down his spine. “Things change. Tastes change,” he said, glancing pointedly up at Tyki, lips lined in a warning.

Fingers circling the base of his glass, trailing across the table, Tyki said, “I’d like you to try it, at least.”

It wasn’t an order. It was an entreaty. 

A request. 

It wasn’t  _ drink up, Link!  _ thrown like a thoughtless, singsong command across the bakery. It wasn’t slender hands splayed like pale spiders over the scarred polish of Cesari’s counter. Messy hair and eyes wide with sweet, honest exuberance.

_ Sweet. _

Like thick chocolate fudge coating his tongue, taking his voice. Sickly. Cloying.

Link swallowed back, hard. Couldn’t seem to unstick his tongue from the roof of his mouth, clear the taste from his palate. 

Dipped his head, pursed his lips around the red and white striped straw. Pulled in a short, careful sip.

It was thick and sweet and perfect, and went down easy like it hadn’t in too long. A different kind of thick - a different kind of sweet. Throat a different kind of tight.

It would be something like relief, if it weren’t so upsetting.

Tyki didn’t ask how it was. He slid his fingers up the side of his slick glass and pinched the straw, stirred his coffee absently so the ice clinked almost pleasantly. He didn’t mention it at all, actually. Had a look about him as though it wasn’t even a conversation they’d had, such that Link wondered for a moment if he hadn’t imagined it.

“The tart’s yours,” he said absently, eyes bored and studious on his fingers.

“I prefer custard,” Link said again, almost instinctively.

Tyki glanced up at him, almost amused. “You mentioned.”

“I wasn’t sure if you were listening,” Link said, wrinkling his nose a little, eyes flicking down to the milkshake. “You seem to have a proclivity for ignoring my tastes.”

“Let it be said,” Tyki teased, still playing with his drink, eyes flicking up to catch Link in place, “that I don’t think anyone can learn to hate lime.”

_ Were you watching me? _

Link didn’t ask. Let his eyes drop to his drink - to the tart sitting between them. Thought about it, and thought about the fact that Tyki was a wizard and that Allen was a demon, and that between them they both ought to be rather clever. Maybe it wasn’t so hard to figure out.

Maybe his curse was written on him where they could see, and every horrible thing it had done to him - inconsequential as a milkshake, and poignant as something loved learned to be hated.

Learned to make him sick, at the thought of the taste.

Link forced himself to swallow back the cloying fervor of nervous anxiety, swallowed it down with a flavour he couldn’t help but love. Something he couldn’t help but love, as childish as it was. 

Strawberry milkshakes and custard tarts, and the scarred polish of a counter as familiar as his own hands. 

Link clenched his fingers, dragged his eyes away from the baker pulling dough behind the counter. Flour to his forearms, unwavering from his focus. He’d been managing quite nicely to avoid thinking about it.

“I can’t,” he started to say, and glanced up sharp and defensive as though he’d forgotten his company.

Tyki seemed entirely more focused on poking his straw through the middle of an ice cube to take much from whatever Link might be saying.

All the same, he clenched his jaw, clenched his hands, tried to force the reality to take in his mind. Feel the shape of it, the immovable texture.

He’d never be able to go home, now.

Eyes on the tart in the middle of the table. He didn’t dislike lime - not in the least. 

He wondered if Tyki had been telling a touch of truth, that it was his favourite. Wondered if he should try baking for him, with that in mind.

Clenched his jaw, clenched his fingers.

Eyes on wrought iron, delicate vines woven into a tabletop. He didn’t think he even _wanted_ to go back. Not really.

Not to the scarred polish of a counter as familiar as his hands, and fingers splayed across it like white lilies, only a hundred times more deadly. A thousand.

So what was he doing here,  _ really? _

What was he doing sitting in Kingsbury in clothes fitted to him which he didn't really own, drinking milkshakes and eyeing up lime curd tarts?

What was he _ doing.  _

Pretending, it felt like. Or perhaps running. Still running, still terrified, still that creature of panic trapped deep in his chest. Like he’d never really caught his breath. Like he’d only been holding it, all this time.

It felt… well, it felt very pointless. Very small, very, _very_ childish. Like he’d given himself over to a game of hide and seek. There was a sense of inevitability about it, truly. About being found.

A promise in the web those spiderlily hands wove for him. Not a nice one, for all it sounded.

_ I love you, Link. Really and truly. _

There was a sense of inevitability about spider hands and snake eyes, and a smile so sickly honest it curdled in the pit of Link’s stomach. Milk gone bad.

A lot of things which should be good gone horribly, awfully wrong.

_ You love me too, don’t you? _

“Should we talk about this curse of yours?”

_ Tell me, Howard.  _

“I thought I explained it already.”

_ Say you love me. _

“Magic is a bit more complicated than that.”

Link blinked at Tyki, wondered if he could uncurl his fingers from the palms of his hands, or if they would be dug in there forever, hiding from his own panic. “Obedience is obedience,” he said quite simply. “I can’t imagine there’s much more to it.”

“Ideally,” Tyki said, gorgeously wry, “your spellcaster had a touch more specificity in mind.”

“He wouldn’t,” Link said, a little bit dull, a little bit resigned. Eyes on his fingers, too slack with defeat to curl in on themselves. “He didn’t.”

Tyki dragged out a long, light sigh. A little bit weary, a little bit exasperated. “This whole thing has a keen sense for making itself more complicated than it has any right to be.”

Link frowned. “Doesn’t that mean it’ll be easier to break? If it wasn’t elaborate,” Link tried.

Tyki slid his forefinger around the base of his glass, slick with condensation. “Yes and no,” he said at length, and glanced up at Link, leaned his elbows up on the table. “Magic is like,” he said, twisting his hands together and pulling them apart, a ribbon of fine red silk held between his fingertips, “a string.” 

A party trick - something hack wizards and hedge witches might to do catch some wide eyes. Link was taken, nonetheless. 

Eyes studious on his hands, Tyki was curling the ribbon around the top of Link’s glass, saying, “Casting a spell is like tying a knot.” A careful bow pulled neat around the top of the glass. “Now,” he said, gesturing to it, “that’s a simple spell. Bad luck, or bad health. Catching a cold in the middle of spring.”

He pinched the end of the ribbon and slipped the knot free. 

“Easily unwoven,” he said, flicking it out, neat.

Slow, careful with his words, Link said, “I take it that’s from someone who knows how to tie a knot.”

“And what knot they’re going to tie,” Tyki agreed, “precisely. You find with a lot of absentminded curses,” he said, wrapping the ribbon around and around the glass, “they fall apart by their own means.” The moment his careful fingers dropped the sloped ends of the ribbon, it slumped as though lifeless, and spooled down to the base of the cup.

“This,” Link said, eyes down on that ribbon, spells broken almost as soon as they were cast. “...Isn’t that.”

“No,” Tyki said, plucking one end of the ribbon between his fingers and pulling it away from the glass, coils curling tighter and tighter around the stem until it slipped away.

Link pulled in a quiet breath. Wasn’t sure when he’d started forgetting to. 

“The kind if spell you’re under,” he said, reaching to pull Link’s braid over his shoulder, slipping heavy between his fingers, “isn’t simple. And it isn’t going to be simple to unravel.” Red ribbon between his steady hands, Link watched him tie a neat, lovely bow around the tail of his plait. “I couldn’t illustrate it with a ribbon,” he said, a wry smile curling at his lips, “and it’s hardly so neat as a Gordian Knot. Like a mass of snakes,” he said, and Link found it sickening to have to swallow his own heart back down his throat. “Tails all tangled, stuck,” he murmured, thumb tracing almost lovingly down the weave of Link’s braid, “their writhing only pulls it tighter.”

_ “Okay,”  _ Link said, quiet, firm, almost unsteady, breath shuddering a little. Jaw wound tight, fingers tighter.

Tyki glanced up at him, quick and almost surprised. Almost as though he’d forgotten Link might still be listening. He looked like he wanted to say something.

_ Not a fan of snakes, Link? _

He didn’t though. Let the end of Link’s braid slip from between his fingers to fall heavy against his shoulder.

“You get the idea,” was what he said, eyes slipping away again, back to his hands. Retreating to his coffee. “If I want to break it, I need to know where it begins and ends.”

“I don’t know,” Link admitted, fingers twisting together in his lap. A mass of snakes. He pulled them apart, smoothed his hands down his thighs as though to rid himself of the feeling. “I don’t know anything about magic.”

“Nothing?” Tyki asked, tilting his head.

“Bar what you just told me,” Link said, almost defensive. “Why would I?”

Tyki’s eyes seemed to drag down Link’s braid, absent intrigue, flicked to his hands. “Not sure,” he said like he had a few ideas. “It’s a bad habit of mine,” he shrugged, eyes slipping away, “assuming everyone knows everything.”

“That leaves us at a bit of a loss,” Link considered, and felt rather hollow with defeat. 

“Maybe not,” Tyki allowed, but it wasn’t the kind of allowance that gave Link much hope. “Whatever reaches he had in mind, there will still be limitations. After all, saying you _should_ do something,” he repeated Link from the previous night, lips pitched in a small little smile, “isn’t the same as telling you _to_ do something.”

Slow with reluctant consideration, rolling his thumbs against his forefingers, Link admitted, “I suppose.”

“Are you bound to honesty?” Tyki asked, straw dragging through his coffee.

Link’s lips pinched, eyes on the table, ground his tongue between his teeth. “Not…” he admitted, slow and cautious, eyes flicking up for only a moment, too wary of saying too much, “if I’m told to say something specific.”

“But  if I were to say,” Tyki considered, flicking his wrist in unconcerned supposition, _ “tell me how you feel-” _

“Sick,” like the word was ripped straight from his throat, raw. Something metallic sat at the back of his tongue and his lips twisted down in helpless disgust. Dipped his head, red-cheeked in hapless frustration, to his milkshake, that he might clear that bitter taste from his mouth.

“...you’d have no choice,” Tyki finished slowly, and sounded rather regretful of his phrasing, “but to tell the truth.”

Link didn’t say anything. Kept his eyes on the neutral territory of his drink, dragged his straw through the cream. Lips tight. Throat tight. Tongue wedged between his teeth that he might loosen his aching jaw.

Silence welled between them, an uncertain pool, and Link wondered with some defensive frustration if Tyki would try something  _ comforting,  _ or perhaps pull the drink away from Link’s too-tight hands. 

He drew in a deep breath and Link pinched his tongue between his teeth.

“Moving right along,” he said, mild - almost dismissive of Link’s honesty, as though through his unwillingness to say it, Tyki decided he hadn’t heard him. “Can you fly?”

“No,” Link said, brows pulling together.

“Can I _make_ you fly?” Tyki pressed.

“You can try,” Link returned with an unimpressed sort of look.

“Go on, then,” Tyki urged, eyes narrow and almost teasing. “Grow some wings and fly away.”

Link glanced down at his arms - wonderfully feather-free - and back up at Tyki with that same expression of reprimanding displeasure. “No, thanks.”

“Wonderful,” he said, and seemed very much to mean it.

“What about this is _wonderful?”_ Link demanded to know, scowl dragging at his brows. 

Tyki arched a lovely, condescending sort of brow and retorted, “Would you rather have flown a circle around the steeple?” and reached out with his fork to pierce the centre of the untouched, unclaimed tart and drag it across the table towards him. “Can I command you to be a touch more optimistic about your situation?” he mocked.

“How would that help?” Link demanded, shrewd, watching him cut the tart with the edge of his fork. 

“It wouldn’t,” Tyki answered simply, bringing a piece to his lips, “but it’ll make this whole situation easier on both of us, don’t you think?”

“Easier on one of us,” Link translated, wry.

“One of us,” Tyki agreed, and Link only realised he’d still been watching his fork when his lips closed over the crumbled crust.

Eyes flicked down, away. Up to catch the tilt of Tyki’s quiet amusement, and back to his drink with an embarrassed heat riding in his cheeks. 

“Allen told me I can’t make you _feel_ anything,” Tyki said, and Link glanced up with abrupt surprise, misreading what Tyki had said such that his heart clenched silent rebuke in his chest - staunch opposition.

It was half a moment after he’d parted his lips with absolutely no clue of what he was going to say, blush flaring brighter, that Link realised what Tyki was saying. “Allen,” he started, and then stopped. Brows furrowed in a confused frown. “I’d been with Allen all day,” he said, Tyki’s grin churning in the pit of his stomach. “He didn’t tell you anything.”

“I eavesdropped,” Tyki admitted, waving it away as though it were nothing. “They had me waiting in the harbour for  _ hours.  _ There wasn’t much else to do, but enjoy the weather.”

“A far better use for your time, I’d wager,” Link muttered, and sat back in his seat. 

“How was I to guess you’d be spilling your deepest, darkest secrets to my demon?” Tyki mocked, carving another slice from the tart. “I can’t see hearts the way he can,” he said with a movement like a vague shrug, eyes on his hands, “so I wouldn’t know a thing about yours.”

Stilted, Link asked, “In what esteem?”

Simple, and entirely unconcerned with the cautious tension bleeding from Link’s coiled shoulders, Tyki said to the tart he had pieced on his fork, “That it beats independent of your curse.”

Quiet, gaze slipping back to his hands, Link repeated almost to himself what Allen had said - a kindly-worded reassurance, or something like it. “I wouldn’t be here, if that weren’t the case.”

Tyki didn’t eat that cut of tart. Looked at Link with an interesting expression of curious calculation - one Link glanced up at from beneath his fringe and then away from just as quickly, eyes pinned to the delicately upturned iron feet of a nearby table. 

At length Tyki admitted, “That’s an interesting thing to say.” Bit off the tart almost absentmindedly, slow eyes deeply considering of Link. “It’s a bit ruthless, don’t you think?” he supposed, and Link only looked up when his attention fell back to the plate, carefully cutting another piece. _“Obedience,”_ he clarified, a curl of his lip. A glance from under his brows, somehow catching Link off guard. “I’m wondering how someone like you came across a spell like that.”

Pulling in a pointed breath, Link made himself reprimand, “You can convince me that the manner of the curse is important to lifting it, but not the circumstance under which it was cast.”

A wry smile pulled at the corner of Tyki’s lips and he jabbed at the tart, its delicate base cracking and crumbling. “You’re very tight-lipped about this, Horace. I’ve no idea about you, really.” Eyes on the sweet he was cutting into smaller and smaller pieces, he asked, “Isn’t your family worried?” with a mockery that told Link he wouldn’t really care so much if they were.

_“Howard,”_ he caved through gritted teeth and exasperated frustration.

“That isn’t nearly as disappointing as I’d hoped,” Tyki said. “I’m almost disappointed.”

“I find,” Link huffed, leaning back in his seat to fold his arms across his chest, a stern look levelled at Tyki, “you’re very easily distracted from what you _should_ be focusing on.”

Slice cut to crumbs, Tyki seemed to find Link’s sensibility rather entertaining, and pushed the mess he’d made of the tart to one side of the plate. Not a touch contrite, he countered, “And I find you’re altogether too focused on work to enjoy the sweeter things.”

Affront rising like indignation in his chest, Link lifted his chin.  _ “Oh?”  _ he challenged, not thinking too much on if Tyki was quite the type of person he’d like to challenge.

“Oh, absolutely,” Tyki countered, Link’s prickled defence only seeming to amuse him all the more. Slicing a careful corner off the little round sweet, Tyki pierced it with his fork and held it up, elbow propped on the table. 

Link glanced from the expectant sort of taunt simmering in Tyki’s smile to the fork he was almost pointedly holding out, and his lips pressed into a tight, unimpressed line. “No, thank you.”

“I want you to take a deep breath,” Tyki said, not even pretending to take Link seriously, “and evaluate your situation.”

Link stayed unmoved, and Tyki arched a daring brow.

“No curses are being lifted until this tart is gone.”

“So eat it yourself,” Link scowled.

A smile, scathingly sweet. “I insist.”

A long moment stretched, Link’s pride fracturing like brittle glass under the way all the mockery fell away from Tyki’s smile until it was just that - just a smile, languid and lax and simply happy to be happy. Happy to take all the time in the world for his own satisfaction. 

It gave with a quiet sigh, that pride of his. Hardly cataclysmic, and it was hardly so awful to unwind his arms from his chest. To place a hand at the edge of the delicate table, to lean forward and curl his fingers around the fork.

He only half expected Tyki to pass it off to him, so he wasn’t at all surprised when he didn’t. Link kept his eyes low, on the way his little finger wove beneath Tyki’s thumb, and kept his attention on the gentle warmth in that quiet touch rather than the gentle warmth in Tyki’s smile.

The tart, when his lips closed over it and the lime curd melted onto his tongue, was perfect.

Light, sharp, still sweet as syrup. Cinnamon and brown sugar in the crust, a paper-thin layer of white chocolate in the base. A soft breath fell from him, almost like relief. He wasn’t sure exactly when his eyes had fallen closed, but he let them stay that way when he leaned back, fingers slipping almost reluctantly from Tyki’s to fan across his lips. 

“Good?” was the gentle murmur from across the table, rich voice woven through with the city’s ambiance. 

Clatter of cutlery, the trickle of conversations flowing independent of theirs. Footsteps on paved roads, the bell of a distant tram. Further away, the dull, harmonic rumble of the square Tyki’s door opened onto.

“Apple,” Link said once he’d carefully swallowed his bite, half in answer, eyes slipping open. Tyki tilted his head a little, quiet smile on his lips. “There’s apple in this,” he explained, a curious glance cast to the half-eaten tart. “I wasn’t expecting that.”

“Surprising?” Tyki asked arms folded at the edge of the table.

Link’s tongue dragged across his lower lip, searching for any lost crumbs. “Not exactly,” he considered. “I suppose I expected it to be more than it looked. Green apple,” he hummed, sitting forwards to take up the fork Tyki had left on the edge of the plate.

“Interesting,” Tyki said, an amused little smile curling at the corners of his lips. “I didn’t notice.”

“Are we back on task?” Link asked, cutting a glance up at Tyki even as he carved another slice from the tart.

“Are we?” Tyki countered, a brow arched all teasing. 

“You’re the one driving this investigation,” Link reminded, lifting the fork. “If you could refrain from deviating from the point, I might be able to return home all the sooner.”

He wouldn’t, of course, his trembling heart as proof. Family or not, he couldn’t go home. He could never go back to Market Chipping, walk right back into spiderlily hands.

To Porthaven, perhaps. Maybe even Kingsbury. The opportunity had certainly presented itself. How hard would it be, to disappear into a capital city? 

How hard would it be, really, to disappear?

Tyki, blind to the morbidity of Link’s future, heaved a long, weary sigh and settled back in his chair, resigned to thinking about Link’s curse. “What if I were to say…” he considered, words long and slow, fiddling with the red-and-white striped straw but making no move to drink,  _ “You must not follow orders?” _

“Well,” Link reasoned, “you just said it.”

Shrewd eyes heavy on Link, Tyki took a moment before commanding, “Stand up.” 

Like a puppet on strings, Link jerked to stand so quickly his chair almost toppled over behind him, and Tyki picked up his drink with a weary sigh.

“Sit down,” he countered, waving it off with an unsatisfied pitch to his lips. “That would be too easy, wouldn’t it.”

“I suppose you could say that,” Link huffed, dragged down to sit heavily in his chair. 

“So I can’t make you  _ ignore  _ your curse,” Tyki listed, drawing a line through the ring of condensation his glass had left on the wrought iron, “and I can’t preemptively override any orders. Can I make you…” he gestured vaguely to all of Link before settling quite unambiguously on, “die?”

“I’m sorry?” Link demanded, sitting up straight, fingers tight around his glass.

“Not  _ that,”  _ Tyki dismissed, leaning back in his seat, studiously dragging the end of the straw through the bobbing, clinking ice cubes inside his glass. “Clearly it would be a simple thing, to have you kill yourself. But could I, say,” he considered, “have you stop your own heart. It beats involuntary of your wishes,” he reasoned, eyes drifting up from his drink to match Link’s almost like an afterthought. “Would it stop, if I told it to?”

_ Yes. _

Link bit his tongue, bit his lips, eyes darting away lest Tyki read something so absurd in them.

“That’s a horrible thing to say,” he said, quiet, trying not to think of how Tyki might test him to find out.

“Could I make you blush?” he asked, so simple and invested, elbows propped on the table, leaning close as though he might very well like to find out.

Despite it being no such command, Link hated that he could feel his cheeks flush with too-easy embarrassment, eyes flickering nervously to Tyki at his quiet, indulgent laugh.

“I suppose that answers that,” he said, and it sounded very much like he was teasing, “but maybe not in the way I intended.”

“And what way is that?” Link defended, haughty, and Tyki tilted his head a little in a gesture of almost-amused consideration.

“Link,” he said, intrigued eyes unwavering, “have a nosebleed.”

Defensive, Link ducked his head, brought the edge of his finger to his nose. Shooting a glare up at Tyki from beneath his brows, he demanded, “Is that  _ necessary?” _ as he surreptitiously pressed the back of his hand to his nose. 

“Did it work?” was all Tyki said, flicking out a napkin and holding it for Link to take.

Link took the cloth, glanced down at the back of his hand. Clean. Dabbed above his lip, and the white linen came away unmarked.

“Guess I couldn’t stop your heart, after all,” Tyki decided, and sat back with a weary huff as though the discovery was an exhausting one.

“If I get too much to bear,” Link muttered, sour, and folded the napkin back onto the table, “you could always have me walk off a cliff.”

“Now, now,” Tyki chided, back to stirring his straw through his all-but-untouched coffee, “don’t be churlish.”

“You seem remarkably upset about it,” he defended, stiff, and dug his spoon into the ice cream float topping his drink.

“I’m far too invested to be upset over not being able to kill you,” Tyki heaved on a weightless sigh. “You cleaned my house,” he said, lips curling in a small moue of displeasure, “and charmed my demon. So I suppose I’m stuck with you, for now.”

“I didn’t do a thing to your demon but offer him some common decency,” Link sniffed.

Skeptical, Tyki asked, watching Link lazily from the corner of his eye, “How much did you feed him?”

“Enough for him to feel like a valued member of the household.”

“Less is more, in this case,” he said, eyes slipping closed. “He’ll get lazy, like this, and it interferes with his magic.”

“I don’t see how a sandwich could hurt anyone,” Link tried to argue, but from the way Tyki’s chest rose and his eyes flickered beneath their lids, he was either thinking, sleeping, or determinedly ignoring Link’s defence.

“Funny,” he murmured, considered, lips moving absently. “I don’t even know what it is. I didn’t notice.” His eyes slipped open, heavy gold. “You’ve really no idea, then?”

“About what?” Link demanded, brows furrowing frustrated confusion. He couldn’t imagine anyone enjoying the cryptic nature of Tyki’s musings, and he found he was quickly losing patience with them.

Tyki’s eyes flicked to Link’s hands, and then to his braid. Sat forward, quite quickly. “You said it wasn’t  _ unusual,”  _ he recounted, expression pitched in intense interest. “Something,” he waved away, “happening in the bakery. You cooked there, naturally.”

“Naturally,” Link answered, stiff, confused. Taken aback.

“The people who bought your pastries,” Tyki said, finger absentmindedly mapping one of the wrought vines of the tabletop. “They loved them.”

“Of course,” Link sniffed, straightening in his seat.

_ “Obsessed,”  _ Tyki murmured, word curling from his tongue like a snake might have said it. Link, jaw locked tight, didn’t say anything. Tyki’s eyes flicked to his braid, his hands, and then away. He leaned back in his seat, a quiet breath falling from his lips. “I’d thank you not to let Allen eat too much.”

“Is there a problem?” Link asked, crisp. Demanding.

Tyki blinked at him, eyes almost reluctant to settle on his face. “I wouldn’t say that.” He didn’t deign to say what he would say, though, and instead brushed his fingers over his brow. “He has, however,” Tyki sighed, “got indigestion. It’s giving me quite the headache.”

“A demon can get indigestion?” Link asked, a skeptical frown furrowing his brow. 

“I told you,” Tyki reminded with a wry smile, standing from his seat, leaving his untouched drink there on the table, “it messes with his magic.”

“And yours?” Link asked, taking a last drink of his milkshake before following Tyki’s example and dabbing at his lips with the napkin. 

“By proxy,” Tyki smiled, teasing coy, “to an extent. We’d best head back so I can fix him up.” An arm held out to guide Link to his side, hand falling to rest between his shoulders when they moved on, back the way they’d come. Link, despite himself, couldn’t help but shoot a tentative glance over his shoulder, back at the bakery and the lovely, pervasive scent of almost-home. 

The walk seemed shorter the second time and Link didn’t notice anyone who might be casting surreptitious, skeptical glances their way. A strange mixture of shame and satisfaction pooling lukewarm in the pit of his stomach, he supposed it wasn’t so unusual for a man like Tyki to flaunt a well-dressed young thing like Link on his arm. The crowd seemed hardly so foreboding with lime and cinnamon lingering on his tongue and Tyki’s hand a reassurance at his back, and for a moment - for just a moment, until they’d crossed the square and stopped at the door - Link let himself pretend there was nothing to be afraid of. 

That somewhat peaceful frame of mind fractured quite suddenly the moment Tyki unlocked the door to the sight of Allen’s wavering form flushing green-blue-yellow, fingers stretching desperate for the logs Link had piled by the hearth, evidently just out of reach. 

_ “Alright,”  _ Tyki announced brusquely, brushing past Link and striding over to wave Allen’s hand away and pick up a log. “Stop it, stop it,” he muttered, ushering the demon back onto his hearth so he could puddle down into a sick-looking flame. TYki held a hand over Allen’s heat, and drew those nauseous flushes up to burn out of him in black, acrid smoke. 

Clean and star-white again, Allen reached out sad and pleading for the log under Tyki’s arm.

He pulled it out of reach, arched a scathing brow while Link surreptitiously slipped off his shoes and stepped closer to peer at Allen’s distressed pout. 

“What did you eat?” Tyki asked of him, log held away like a threat.

Allen slumped down in a distressed sort of whine and said, “Ask Link; he’s the one who fed me.”

_ “Or,”  _ Tyki emphasised, “I left a pack of cigarettes on the hearth.”

“I’m sure,” Allen choked a coughing laugh, “if that were the case, I’d have noticed.”

Tyki levelled him with a reprimanding look and reasoned, “I think, after all this time, I’d know what Port Royal smells like once it’s been choked out of your system,” while he carelessly tossed the log onto the fire.

“You’d think, then, that you’d stop making the mistake of leaving them in arm’s reach,” Allen reasoned, prim, folding his arms over the fresh log and propping his chin atop them, arching a taunting sort of brow at Tyki, who turned his back with a huff and a roll of his eyes. “I don’t see how they’re any worse for me than they are for you,” he defended, scowling at Tyki’s back. 

“They aren’t,” Tyki muttered, and stopped short, eyes on the floor. Cutting a quick glance up to Link, he seemed to realise, “We forgot to get a rug.”

Link glanced down beneath his feet, shifted to see the stylistic gold-and-red patterned border of the carpet. “Does it really matter?” he asked, skeptical. 

“Oh, absolutely,” Tyki assured, walking over to his workbench and rummaging around for a particular bottle before coming back with a fine silver powder in hand. Rather carelessly, he flicked it across the rug and stood back with his fists propped on his hips.

Link, startled, glanced down to find the knots of the weave twisting and shifting, metamorphosing into a different design altogether. A rich gold border, patterns defined in shades of black and edged in scarlet, the field ornamented a deep red and the medallion as more elaborate gold picked out with ivory wool. Somehow - almost impossibly - it was more gaudy than it had ever been.

“That’s hideous,” was Allen’s verdict. 

“Isn’t it?” Tyki agreed, sounding somewhat gleeful. Thrilled, it seemed, at the idea of having something to scorn. 

Link breathed a sigh, passed his fingers over his creased brow. He was sure he could feel a headache coming. 


	3. Chapter 3

Tyki settled down into his chair sometime later that evening, a clean glass hanging from his fingers and a bottle of whiskey on the stout table beside him. Dragged an analysing, calculating look around the spotlessly clean living room and figured that all it took was twenty-four hours and a destructive sort of earnestness to completely reupholster someone’s home and inextricably wedge a way into their life. 

Well, perhaps inextricable was the wrong word. Tyki was of the opinion right then that Link was helpful but, in the scheme of Tyki quite effortlessly managing to survive thirty-two years without him tidying his house and rearranging his spells, hardly what he would call a necessity. 

“Hm,” he decided, rather eloquently. 

“What?” Allen demanded wearily from the fireplace. 

“Nothing,” Tyki hummed, and brought the glass to his lips, the sweet coolness of warm liquor sliding over his tongue, down his throat. And then, once it had passed, he asked, “What do you think of Link?”

Allen’s eyes narrowed, that shocking contrast of burning ember and brilliant star. “Why?” 

Tyki looked down at his whiskey, tilted his glass to admire how the rich amber darkened against the palm of his hand. “Wondering if I should keep him around.”

Skeptical, Allen observed, “You took him to Gill’s.”

“To figure him out,” Tyki reasoned, and downed another sip. Then added, “And he needed to get out of those clothes.”

“He was wearing  _ those clothes,”  _ Allen mocked with a roll of his eyes, “because he ran all the way from Market Chipping in the middle of the night. Really think he has anywhere else to go?”

“Cute,” Tyki laughed into his glass, quiet and amused, “that you think that is somehow my problem.”

“Isn’t it?” Allen asked. 

Tyki glanced up, looked at him. A perplexed look had furrowed Allen’s flickering brow. A question Tyki was trying to determine if he needed an answer to. There was intrigue there, yes. There was _something._ He didn’t know yet if it was something worth figuring out. Didn’t know if Link was someone he wanted to bother figuring out. 

“Is he boring?” he asked, in the same tone of genuine curiosity as Allen had. 

“I don’t know,” he retorted, almost defensive. Flame-licked shoulders creeping up around his ears. “I don’t know what he is.”

A feeling, more than anything. Tyki had compromised himself more for less. Dollars weren’t worth as much as sense, and there was something less than a memory and less than familiarity and less than an understanding swirling lazy inquisition below his lungs, and curiosity was worth more satisfaction than new shoes. 

“Incurably,” Tyki answered himself, eyes drifting somewhere over near the foot of the stairs. “But this curse of his is anything but boring.”

“What is it, then?” Allen asked, slumping down amongst his embers in a huff of dozing sparks lifting into the air. 

“Frustrating,” Tyki sighed, elbow draped off the arm of the couch, glass hung from his fingers. “A spell like that should have fallen apart days ago.”

Allen offered a considering hum, settled his chin on one of the logs. “Someone isn’t as eager to let him go as he was to escape.”

“Something like that,” Tyki agreed, passed his fingers over his brow. 

Allen twisted his lips, watched Tyki with unenthusiastic expectation. “You know what that means, right.”

A long, quiet sigh. “Anything else, first,” he determined, weary, “to subvert the curse. That’s the last thing I want.”

A wry smile, a little defeated. “Really think you can free him with more shackles?”

“If it works, it works,” Tyki reasoned, equally wry. “Do me a favour?”

“Never,” Allen lied, a smile curling at the corner of his lips. 

“Don’t tell him.” An arched brow from Allen, skeptical. “Not that I think he doesn’t know,” he reasoned, because it really had nothing to do with what Tyki thought of Link, “but I don’t want to give him ideas of an ultimatum when there are other options on the table.”

A quiet voice, that vice of keen empathy laced apology into Allen’s words when he said, “He’s terrified as it is.”

Tyki dipped his head in a nod, placed his half-finished glass on the table and pushed himself to his feet. “Keep him hidden, then,” he said, pulling a split log from the piled wood by the edge of the hearth and dropping it into Allen’s embers with a flare of disturbed sparks, “so he won’t have to be.”

Allen’s lips quirked in a half-smile, arms curling around the log. “Like you care.”

Tyki breathed a laugh, eyes creasing something like affectionate amusement. “Keep me safe,” he corrected himself, “from his enemies.”

Quiet, warmth in the pit of his voice, Allen murmured, “Sleep well, Mikk.”

A teasing, almost mocking twist of his lips. “I always do.”

Quiet footsteps up the stairs, Tyki paused by the door to the Porthaven room. Cocked his head, a halfhearted effort to hear for any disturbance inside. From what he could tell, Link was already asleep. From what he could tell, Link wasn’t the type to linger in a bedroom for more than the intention of sleeping. Almost forcefully practical, like that. 

Tyki breathed a quiet laugh, almost a scoff, and moved past. Pulled open the door to the balcony and settled into the old dining chair with his feet kicked up on the railing, cool breeze rolling in off the moors. A pack of Chesterfield Blue from the inner pocket of his coat, he lit a cigarette from the old lighter he’d stolen from Sheryl years ago and settled in to think about Howard Link and that strange curse he had himself tangled up in.

Amazing, how unbearably plain someone could be. That rulebook personality of his really was such a waste of a pretty face. 

 

* * *

 

A skeptical, “Good morning,” roused him like an elbow dug against his ribs, and Tyki woke with a sharp breath. 

It was quite a mission, blearily blinking his stinging eyes open, each time managing to keep them open a fraction of a second longer. A considerable amount of will and pain went into lifting his head, his neck sore and aching from where he’d fallen asleep with his chin dipped against his chest. 

Dawn was just then cracking over the moors, pink and orange and gold drawing back towards the sun, the fog lining the heathy grass catching the cool early-morning light. And Link, standing with one foot in the house and the other only half on the balcony, was altogether too much for Tyki to want to experience right then. 

“Oh,” he dragged out, throat rough and dry, and let his eyes fall closed again under the pretense of lifting a lead-heavy hand to rub at them. “Thanks.” Not entirely sold either way on whether that was sarcastic or not. The last thing he wanted, of course, was to be woken up at the crack of dawn by Howard Link. Equally low on that list of priorities was spending a second past the crack of dawn asleep on the balcony. 

His entire body. Ached.

“Did you go to bed at all?” Link asked, a half-step closer to the threshold so he had two half-feet on the balcony. 

Heaved on a weary, pained groan, Tyki dragged his feet down from the rail and admitted, “I was on my way there,” and sat for a moment considering very earnestly if his knees would support him. Looking himself over with a mixed sensation of confusion and exhausted disappointment, Tyki flicked the butt of the burned-down cigarette he’d only half-smoked over the rail and rummaged in his coat for a fresh one. 

Link was still hesitating by the door, and with a cigarette hanging from his lips and a lighter in his palm, elbows leaning heavily on his knees, Tyki offered him a sarcastic prompt of a glance. “You right?”

“Are you?” Link countered, and there was a peculiarly earnest pinch between his severe brows which gave Tyki pause for all of a moment before he scoffed a laugh around the cigarette, turned away from Link and cupped his hands around the flame of his light. 

“You know,” he mumbled around the filter, smoke spilling from his lips, “of the two of us, only one is playing a particularly shit hand.”

His frown dipped into something more confused this time, verging on offended. Wondering, right then, if he  _ should  _ be. “What do you mean?”

“I mean you have some kind of self-effacing audacity to be asking how  _ I’m  _ feeling right now,” he reasoned, hanging his hand over the edge of the rail and letting a lungful of smoke trail from his lips. 

Stiff, stepping quite comfortably into the realm of offence, Link sniffed, “Forgive me my concern.”

A smile twisting his lips, Tyki signed a lazy cross in the air with the hand holding his smoke, kissed the ring on thumb and said, “Say five Hail Marys and don’t do it again.” A moment later, catching the way Link’s teeth locked like vices and his lips parted in a short war with himself that he would very much lose, Tyki corrected, “Don’t, actually. That was,” he waved his hand, a dismissal of the unintentional command, “a joke.”

A sigh, quiet and forceful and somewhat frustratedly relieved, Link turned cheek, eyes on the rising sun. Jaw curled tight, words forcibly pleasant, he asked, “Would you like breakfast?”

Tyki heaved himself to his feet, stretched his arms and winced at every joint in his spine cracking. “Please,” he groaned on a pent-up sigh, all his energy leaving him to slump against the rail of the balcony, “if you’re feeling so inclined.”

Link hesitated, still, and Tyki didn’t try turning to catch a glance on what might be written on that intent face of his. There was a quiet sigh, and a huff of him folding his arms. “I can’t figure you out, Joyd,” he admitted, and didn’t sound particularly upset about it. Not upset so much as wearied.

“That so?” was Tykis noncommittal response. Arms folded over the balcony rail, shoulders slouched up near his ears, he brought the cigarette to his lips and puffed smoke out to join the fog creeping off in the face of dawn. 

“You were eager to take me in, remarkably bitter the morning after doing so, and perfectly charming in Kingsbury.” He was offended, still - that much Tyki could tell from his voice. But deeply vexed too. Bemused and frustrated. 

He turned to face him, elbows planted on the rail. “And what am I now?” he asked, watching Link’s frown furrow deeper. 

His lips pinched and pitched down in a dissatisfied sort of look. “Dismissive,” he said, unsurprised and certain. 

A smile quirked at the corner of Tyki’s mouth. “How astute,” he observed, the simplicity of pleased mockery curling amusement through his voice. 

“Why?” Link demanded, and looked very much as though he didn’t plan on leaving until he got an answer. 

Tyki breathed a laugh, glanced down at the grass slipping by below, still clouded in clouds. They were up rather high, there in the moors. “I’m a very complex person,” was what he said, eyes slipping sly to catch Link’s in a gesture almost like a challenge, “and I don’t particularly care how you  _ feel  _ about me. To assume my mood fluctuates on your command is high regard, indeed.”

Link didn’t seem particularly happy with that answer, if the rather unhappy look on his face was anything to go by, but he was satisfied with it at the very least. “What  _ do  _ you care about, then?” he asked, but had shifted his feet a half-inch back like an invitation for Tyki to walk all over him. 

Tyki parted his lips, wondered if something might spring to mind. When nothing did, he arched his brows and caved with a shrug. “Nothing, really,” he admitted, offhand. 

Link’s lips twisted in something like a smile, only it was something completely unlike a smile. “That doesn’t sound very complex to me,” was all he said and gave Tyki an apologetic sort of shrug before he slipped back inside without bothering to meet his eyes.

The door clicked closed behind him with a quiet sound, and Tyki blinked at it as though he wasn’t quite sure what to make of Howard Link. “Impertinence suits you,” he said to the door. It didn’t say anything back. The whole castle creaked and huffed its way along the mountainside, turrets wheezing steam and gears rolling to maneuver the ungainly legs it meandered on. Tyki sat on the balcony for a long while wondering if he’d rather finish his cigarette or go downstairs with the sole intent of irritating Link to ruffle his civility, until his indolent indecision saw his cigarette smoked down and an oddly satisfied sort of hunger settling in the pit of his stomach at the thought of breakfast being cooked and waiting for him. 

Really, there should have been no question to keeping Link around. The hassle of his cardboard personality was reasonably outweighed by his helpfulness - and Tyki would be lying if he weren’t to admit that the small flare of (somewhat misplaced) confidence hadn’t caught Tyki’s repentant interest. 

He could forgive Link his vices, if it meant having someone new to stir up into nipping at his heels. Allen had long since learned all his tricks. 

So with a smile curled onto his lips, Tyki scraped the sour ember of his cigarette out on the railing and dropped the butt into the empty bottle he kept by his seat, for the most part semi-conscious of not littering burned-down cigarettes across the moors his castle tread across. The house, when Tyki slipped into the hallway, was predictably filled with the smell of cooking bacon laced through with fresh toast, and down the stairs he could hear the enticing sizzle of Allen heating the pan. 

“I’m wondering if it really counts as breakfast,” Tyki considered, peering over Link’s shoulder into the pan for a quick glance at sausage, bacon, and herbs clinging to the sticky yolk and clear whites of eggs nestled amongst fried tomatoes and shallots and some other spinach-like greenery before Link slipped a cutting board over the top of it, trapping all those gorgeous smells inside, “if you go back to sleep immediately after eating it.”

“It doesn’t,” Link answered, curt, and picked a mug from the hearth to hold out for Tyki to take, “and you’re not getting any if that’s your plan.” 

“You made coffee,” was all Tyki could say, dumb with surprise, looking at the cup in his hand. 

“Yes,” he sniffed, still clipped, and turned his back to arrange the toast on two plates and smear an even coat of butter over each slice.

“Don’t get me wrong,” Tyki said, sniffing at the bitter-mellow steam before bringing it to his lips and taking a sip, “as impressive as you are, Howard, you’re not who I’m impressed with right now. Any idiot can make a coffee. But,” he allowed, crouching down to be level with the hearth, peering below the pan to find Allen simmering perfectly unconcerned beneath it, “it takes a remarkably bold fire to consent to something like that.”

“Don’t belittle me,” Allen sniffed, an imperious glare levelled at Tyki from the flickering blue flames. “The difference is that I never felt confident you wouldn’t put me out accidentally-on-purpose.”

Tyki gave him a smile, as fake-real as Allen’s ever were, and said, “Now, we both know that would do me more harm than good, and I’m not in the business of making things difficult for myself.”

“And yet,” Allen muttered, an unobtrusive glance shot at Link from beneath the cover of the pan.

In a subdued whisper, Tyki chastised, “Don’t pretend you don’t like him for my sake. I’ve decided to change my opinion of him.”

Doubtful, Allen admitted, “That doesn’t feel as reassuring as it sounds.”

“Please stop distracting my fire,” Link commanded with the air of an exasperated mother, waving his hands at Tyki to shoo him away from the hearth. “He’s doing his best and you’re not helping.”

“On the contrary,” Tyki corrected, pushing himself to his feet and stepping over to his chair with coffee in hand, “I’m all the best parts of him.”

“Blatant lie,” Allen said, all but in perfect synchronisation with Link’s quickly-stifled scoff. 

“That is simply not true,” Link agreed, shifting the board for a moment to check on the eggs, lovely steam spilling out. 

Tyki blinked at them, entirely unimpressed, and sat himself down with a weary, pained sigh, back still twinging with the ache of having slept out on the balcony most of the night. “All I do is build character in this place. Thankless work, it seems.”

“What’s there to thank?” Allen snipped from beneath the pan. “You never taught me how to cook.”

“I taught you how to be ungrateful,” tyki reasoned, picking up the half-finished glass of whiskey he’d left on the stout table the night before and cautiously swirling it, sniffing at the rim, and downing it. 

“Fantastic parenting, on your part,” Link muttered all but to himself, lifting the eggs and fried tomatoes and bacon and tastefully steamed green things onto each of the plates. 

“I signed up for a demon,” Tyki enunciated, washing the flat taste of standing whiskey down with a mouthful of coffee, “not a child. He could have turned out entirely more awful.”

“And you, an entirely better person,” Link commented with a reprimanding sort of glance. “I’d be morbidly thrilled to meet the family of someone like you.”

“You’re out of luck there,” Tyki announced, very pleased with himself. “They’re elsewhere.”

Link, for a moment, looked absolutely horrified and paused in the middle of the room with two steaming plates in his hands. “You didn’t,” he paused, and looked very appalled by his own suppositions when he hazarded,  _ “vanish  _ them, did you?”

Tyki blinked at him, long and slow, a pleasant smile sitting on his lips. “They’re overseas, Howard.”

His shoulders seemed to slump half a millimeter with a breath of relief and he stepped up to hold a plate out for Tyki to take. “I never thought to ask where you were from,” he admitted, and seemed somewhat sheepish about it. “I don’t suppose I really considered that you came  _ from  _ anywhere.”

An amused smile curling Tyki’s lips as he settled the plate on his lap and his coffee on the table, he reasoned, “What good is it putting all this work into being enigmatic if I were to simply tell you all my secrets?”

Link’s lips pursed and an unsurprised little hum tugged from his throat, and he allowed, “You keep your secrets, then, and I expect you’ll allow me to do the same.”

Tyki laughed at that, pierced the yolk of his egg and smeared it over the toast, let it soak into the bread. “Oh, no,” he said, shaking his head while he cut into his breakfast. “I have every intention of digging out all your skeletons.”

“That’s hardly fair,” Link said, a scowl in his voice as he set his plate on the table behind Tyki. 

“What about this strikes you as  _ fair?”  _ Tyki scoffed, taking a bite and leaning back in his chair to savour it. 

“I figured,” Link sniffed, careful words laced with quietly frustrated offence, “that considering I’ve had my fair share of unfairness, you might be willing to balance all that out.”

“My responsibilities,” Tyki reasoned, “of which there are few, hardly include making you happy.”

“Your responsibilities,” Link all but mocked, “of which there is one, is to lift this curse. Managing to do so without invading my privacy would make me _incredibly_ happy.”

“Well,” Tyki hummed, cutting another mouthful of the admittedly quite wonderful breakfast, “we can’t always get what we want.”

Sullen from the hearth, burning fingers licking over the base of the empty pan for whatever might linger of the breakfast he hadn’t been allowed to eat, Allen muttered, “And yet you seem to make an art of it.”

“Why  _ do  _ good things happen to bad people?” Link agreed.

“I think it might be a bit far to call me a bad person,” Tyki reasoned, mild. “It’s not exactly villainous to put yourself first, you know, but the two of you are too caught up in unappreciated martyrdom and working unto death for people who don’t deserve it to acknowledge the art of self-preservation.”

Link and Allen both seemed to breath quiet sighs, and Link said, “At least you’re humble enough to admit it.”

Tyki shot a confused glance over his shoulder at Link, unable to parse sarcasm into his understanding of that particular little square, before he realised what he was saying. “Oh,” he announced, and then laughed. “Oh, no.  _ You’re  _ the workaholic. Allen is the martyr.”

“Unappreciated is right,” Allen muttered, face pressed against the blackened iron pan, hopelessly desperate for any charcoaled crumbs. 

“Maybe I should find another wizard,” Link supposed to some corner of the ceiling. 

“Trust me, kid,” Tyki scoffed, biting off a forkful of toast, “the only two people on this earth who can break that spell are me and whoever cast it.”

An unwilling silence, at length broken with a sigh. “Dire prospects.”

“Right,” Tyki agreed, layered dry and facetious. 

“If that’s the case,” Link said, and Tyki had a strong opinion of Link meticulously setting his knife and fork down to plant his elbows on the table, twine his fingers together and jab a piercing look at the back of Tyki’s head, “I trust you’ve already made some progress.”

“Progress,” Tyki repeated, as though deeply considering it, and turned his head only far enough to see that he’d been very much right about Link’s posture of expectation. “There’s been progress,” he defended, looking back at where Allen was shifting nervously on the hearth, mismatched eyes flickering between Tyki and Link. “We talked about it.”

“And what did you  _ conclude  _ about it?” Link demanded, impassively unswayed

“Conclude?” Tyki repeated again, surprise woven through his voice. “Don’t be hasty, Little Link. I said we  _ talked.” _

Impatience driving frustration up the column of Link’s throat to colour his voice, he skewed Tyki’s words from yesterday with a scathing sort of annoyance. “What good is a conversation if it doesn’t conclude anything?”

Allen rolled his lips between his teeth, watching them. Tyki turned again to see Link, twisted his torso and hung an elbow over the back of his seat. Condescending pleasantry lay heavy in his perfunctory blink before he said, “If you’re so bent on knowing, Howard, we concluded that we  _ would _ help you. Not how.”

Link blinked back at Tyki, and looked more than a little appalled. “I thought you’d already decided to,” he admitted, the self righteous steel in him slumping.

Tyki smiled, a mocking sort of thing. “Regardless of when that decision came about,” he rebuffed, “I’d have thought our little talk yesterday would have keyed you in that this mess of yours won’t exactly be cleaned up in a matter of milkshakes and tarts.”

Link looked a little incensed, but he also looked as though he knew losing his composure wouldn’t lead them a single step further and seemed to be trying his best to bite it back, sucked his frustration back inside him in a deep, purposeful breath. “Okay,” he allowed, lips tight, words shaped with particular specificity, “so where does that leave us?”

“Enjoying our breakfast,” Tyki answered simply, returning to his plate with a pleased kind of interest.

Link was silent for a long stretch of time and, from what Tyki could gather from glances cast from Allen, it wasn’t a particularly good silence. 

When at last he spoke, he still sounded as though he were selecting his words with cautious intent. “This holds no bearing on you,” was what he said, “so I don’t expect you to share my sense of urgency, but for what it’s worth, sooner really is better.”

Allen looked at Tyki.

Tyki looked at Allen.

Tyki set his knife and fork down, lifted his plate and moved himself to the table - a seat at a corner from Link’s. He’d hardly touched his food. The eggs sat cooling atop his bacon, yolks steamed over like blind eyes. Tyki sat down and looked at him. Eyes cast down on the table, fingers knotted in his lap.

“Nothing good ever comes before coffee, cigarettes and something to eat,” he said, gesturing for Link to pick up his fork with a slight flick of his fingers. “You put the effort into preparing it,” he reasoned, cutting another slice and piling his fork with tomato and greens and what seemed to be mushrooms. “One thing at a time, Link.”

Doubtful and somewhat sarcastic, he picked up his cutlery and asked, “Is breakfast really as important as the rest of my life?”

“The two are closer than you’d think,” Tyki said, and didn’t eat until Link had taken his first reluctant bite.

 

* * *

  
He went up to take a shower while Link took care of the dishes and cleaning up after breakfast. A regular housemaid. Tyki could really stand to get used to keeping him around. Curse or no, there was the opinion that Link would jump if Tyki so much implied that was what he wanted. So desperate to prove his worth, so eager to please.

A dog, in that sense. Stray puppy scratching at his door, pleading to be useful.

He was halfway through washing his hair when that thought struck him as an  _ idea,  _ and Tyki made the mistake of opening his eyes in shocked wonder at its simplicity. 

He let out a sharp yell and pressed the heel of his hand against his burning eye. Another mistake as it, too, was covered in soap. Barked, gritted curses torn from his throat as he fervently cleared his eye under the stream of water and, after fumbling to close off the taps, he stumbled out of the bathtub, hurriedly wrapped a towel around his waist and ran to the top of the stairs.

“I’ve got it!” he announced, clinging to the bannister and peering down into the lounge to find Link dutifully sweeping the floor while Allen gnawed on a fresh log. “Just-!” he started, trotted two steps down the stairs before catching his slipping towel, glancing down at his wet feet, and then back up to the hallway. “Just a moment,” he decided and ran back up those stairs, along the hall and into his bedroom. 

Hardly bothering to latch the door, he roughly dried his legs and chest, dropped his towel on the floor and made as though to dig through his wardrobe for something to wear before he stopped, looked at the mess of clothes scattered across the ground, on tables, falling out of dressers, and huffed a frustrated sigh. Closed his eyes and lifted his hand, focused on the specific shirt he was  _ looking  _ for, and snapped his fingers. 

In a moment the warm cotton was slipping over his head, threading his arms through the sleeves, and when he opened his eyes his pants were laying neatly on the end of the bed. In a rush he tugged them on, tucked in the shirt and untucked the heavy blue-jewelled necklace from his collar, summoned a warm breeze to dry his hair and tore back out of his room to trot down the stairs. 

Link, in the time it had taken Tyki to get dressed, had presumably finished sweeping the floor and had started on Allen’s hearth. A far cry from sitting to wait expectantly on the edge of his seat, but, well. Tyki couldn’t quite find it in him to complain. 

“I was just thinking about your curse,” he stated, dragging his fingers through his hair and twisting it up into a loose bun at the nape of his neck, “and it struck me why it’s so funny to me.”

“This is  _ funny  _ to you?” Link demanded, but realistically it didn’t have any heat. He seemed to be getting used to it. Good. 

“Unbearably,” Tyki confirmed in an offhand rush. “But the fact you would jump were I to say ‘jump’ is far too reminiscent of an obedient dog.”

“No,” Allen announced, voice flat and unimpressed.

Link seemed to need a moment to take that in. He blinked, and then blinked again. They didn’t look like particularly happy blinks. At length he asked, “What?” in the most unimpressed, dreading sort of way Tyki could imagine. Wonderful. 

“I know a spell to fix up a disobedient dog,” Tyki continued, already moving to his workbench, “so if I can reverse-engineer it, that might sort you out.”

“Might,” Link repeated, dreading. 

“I’m certain,” Allen supplied, “that the answer you’re looking for is  _ no.” _

Tyki shot him a condescending frown and prompted, “Suggestions, then? No?” Allen’s lips pinched and he clutched his log to his chest. “Nothing?” Tyki asked. Allen glared back wordlessly. “Who here knows what they’re talking about?” Tyki considered, glancing around the room as though searching for any raised hands. “No one? Just me,” he confirmed. “Thought so.”

Upon turning back to his bench, he heard Allen mutter,  _ “Baaaaad  _ idea.”

He scoffed a derisive laugh and countered, shaking out a yellow kerchief and placing it into the bowl of the mortar, “There’s nothing wrong with this idea.”

“What’s that for?” Link asked, having crept up to the end of the bench to keep an eye on Tyki’s busy hands. 

“Yellow channels the energy of the spell to influence a living body,” he explained briefly. Didn’t really have the time or wherewithal to explain how it was more a reflection of the type of magic itself, and how every spell would create its own luminosity dependant on the components of intended effect. That wasn’t even  _ important  _ magic. It was really just to keep track of what he was doing. 

Link, bless him, left Tyki with a doubtful silence.

A quick glance at his face told Tyki he really didn’t know the vaguest thing about even the  _ properties  _ of spells and he consoled, “This is basically brain surgery,” while he turned his back and rummaged through his rearranged ingredients, “so don’t worry about it.”

“That sounds,” Link started, and hesitated before settling on, “dangerous.”

“Not in the hands of someone who knows what he’s doing,” Tyki confided, easily confident, still looking for that one damned jar that  _ should  _ have been on the third shelf, fifth from the right but was for reasons beyond his understanding not there at all. 

“For the record,” Allen piped up once more, “this is a terrible idea.”

“It’s  _ on  _ the record, several times over now, that you think this is a this is a bad idea Allen, thank you for your input,” Tyki reminded with a roll of his eyes, finally snatching up the bottle of cayenne and quickly finding the vacha root, onyx, plucking a few black thorns from the container beneath the window, and pulling the frankincense burner from a hook on the wall. He glanced around a moment, eyes scanning the shelves for -  _ ah.  _

Well.

He twisted his lips, reached out a hand and hesitated over three bottles of red-brown powdered stone. “Hm,” he said, and pulled down the only bottle he could be sure of being hematite. That still left the dragon blood resin, which he needed, and the lepidolite, which would royally screw him. 

“What?” Link asked, overly cautious.

“Just thinking how thankful I am that you rearranged everything, Link,” Tyki reassured, light and sarcastic. “It really makes it a lot easier to find things.”

“Oh,” he said, taken aback. And then, “You’re welcome.”

Tyki shot a reprimanding frown over his shoulder and corrected, “Sarcasm, Howard. That was sarcasm. I could flip a coin here, but I’m just going to make an educated guess,” he reasoned, picking one of the two near identical bottles and placing it with the others on his bench.

“With my brain surgery,” Link prompted, unhappy.

“Yes,” Tyki confirmed, a short, dry smile. “You’re welcome.” He rapped his fingers across the wood, did a quick count of his six ingredients, and turned to Link. “One last thing,” he said, and reached out to pluck a few hairs from Link’s unsuspecting fringe. 

_ “Ow!”  _ he snapped, taking all of half a step back and bringing a hand to his hairline as though to check for blood, a tragic frown disturbing his brow.

Without really bothering to apologise, Tyki scattered the vacha root, black thorn and cayenne into the cloth, and ground it together into a rough, sharp powder beneath the pestle. “Hematite,” he hummed, tapping in one of the red powders, “to strengthen your latent will, and,” he continued, adding the other, all but hoping it into being the right bottle, “dragon blood, to give it a kick.” With all that, he added the crushed onyx and ground it all together once more.

“What’s this for?” Link asked, picking up the clear jar of black stone shards. 

“Are you nervous?” Tyki asked, all but nonchalant, and tied the corners of the cloth together to lift it up and place it in the bowl of the frankincense burner. 

“Yes,” Link admitted readily.

“This will help with that,” Tyki consoled, latched the lid and curled the chain around his hand to carry the burner over to Allen. “Hold this?” he asked, holding it in front of him so he could reach out a white-fire hand. “Thanks,” he said, lowering it to rest in Allen’s star-hot hold. 

Before long the spell was burning heady smoke through the vents of the steel, and it was only once it was flickering gold sparks that Tyki lifted it from Allen’s hold, took it back to the bench, cooled it with a touch and emptied the black powdered remains into a waiting dish. 

Link, by his shoulder peered cautiously at the spell, shrewdly analysing the way it seemed to shimmer and glow yellow-gold throughout the charred powder. “Is that it?” he asked.

“That’s it,” Tyki confirmed.

Link’s lips seemed to narrow and twist, and his frown was somewhat worried. “It seems awfully simple.”

Tyki couldn’t help the glance he flickered to Allen before settling back on Link. “I’m not saying it  _ will  _ work,” he consoled, insofar as he could bring himself to console Link, “but even if it doesn’t, at least we’ll know this isn’t a tail we should chase. Are you ready?” he asked, picking up the bottle and eyeing it, swirling it a little to check how the glow flared and pulsed at the disturbance.

“No,” Link answered, doubtful.

“As ready as you’ll ever be,” Tyki reasoned with a vague shrug and gestured for Link to follow him to the center of the room. “Here,” he commanded, fingertips on Link’s shoulders to position him in the middle of that ugly rug. Lifting the vial, he upended it over Link’s head to let the black-and-gold spell cascade over his neat hair and squared shoulders, his eyes closed, mouth pinched, nose scrunched up in tense defence. 

A cloud of gold-toned smoke enveloped Link, swirling and sparkling, the spell activated, and Tyki took a step back as it coalesced and withdrew into Link’s body. 

Link, who…

Wasn’t there. 

Empty clothes crumpled and folded to the floor, dusted with the remnants of a spell. A quick, uncertain dread filled Tyki, chilled heavy bones, and he didn’t move. Just watched those clothes, waiting for something to change to make it so he might not have fucked up that badly. 

He  _ couldn’t  _ have fucked up that badly. 

Could he?

“Ah,” was all he could manage to say. Uncertain caution. 

_ “UM,”  _ Allen demanded loudly from the fireplace, and when Tyki looked over he could see him leaning as far over the edge of the hearth as he could reach, fingers digging blackened divots into the stone. 

“I’m sure,” Tyki started to say, then glanced back at Link’s empty clothes. “Uh. I’m sure he’s fine.”

_ “What gives you that idea?”  _ Allen demanded, wild panic lifting his kindly voice two tones louder and giving a texture harsh and jagged. 

“I’m,” Tyki started to say, and then stopped abruptly, holding a staying hand out to Allen’s incensed horror to say, “Wait, wait, something’s moving.” He cautiously took a step closer to Link’s clothes and placed the empty bottle of the spell on the floor beside him before lifting Link’s empty sleeve, moving the shirt here and there to rummage through and find whatever was struggling in its confines.

When a small, confused puppy stumbled blindly out of the bottom of Link’s shirt, looking around with wild, nervous eyes, Tyki sat back on his heels with a carefully weighted breath loosed from his lips. 

“Right,” he said, more than a little taken aback, watching the small golden retriever stumble and trip backwards over Link’s pants, circling timidly to take in what Tyki could imagine was a very large, somewhat scary living room filled with a giant wizard and his terrifying fire. 

Allen, now that fear had given way to outrage, barked,  _ “I told you it was a bad idea, Mikk!” _

Lips numb, still taking a moment to take it in, Tyki reminded, “Four times now, yeah.”

_ “Did you listen?”  _ Allen demanded, impetuously furious with him.

“Not once,” Tyki admitted, watching the puppy - which could only be Link himself - cower away from Allen’s yelling, hunkering down close to the floor with his tail between his legs, ears pitched down, scared eyes flickering around for some kind of escape. 

_ “Are you listening NOW?”  _ Allen asked, flaring red-hot with fury.

“With all of one ear,” Tyki answered, eyes still locked on the small, trembling Link.

_ “Maybe I should tell you LOUDER,”  _ Allen yelled, voice reaching a horrifying crescendo,  _ “so you’ll actually LISTEN TO ME!”  _

Tyki could feel the heat of his anger from where he was crouched on the floor and Link shrank back from the yelling, a small, terrified whine trembling out of him before he turned and scrambled away, stumbling over his too-big feet. Tyki stayed where he was, carefully quiet, and let Link scamper around table legs and chairs until he found a place to cower, beneath the stairs, behind the red velour chaise lounge. 

“I suppose,” he murmured, slow and careful, voice pitched low so as not to alarm him further, “I didn’t use enough onyx.”

“Really,” Allen demanded, and scoffed a sharp, derisive laugh. “Really, is that the problem here? You didn’t you enough  _ onyx,”  _ he bit out, “and now he’s a  _ dog.” _

“No,” Tyki corrected, sharp, jaw jumping against the urge to throw something at Allen, “I mixed up the dragons blood and the lepidolite and now he’s a dog. But you keep  _ yelling,”  _ he snapped, a cold glare levelled at Allen, “and he keeps freaking out, so  _ yeah,”  _ he barked, throat aching from how furiously he was holding back from yelling,  _ “I didn’t use enough onyx.” _

Allen, with a regretful glance to where Link was cowering beneath the stairs, pulled in a sharp breath and seemed to make a monumental effort to calm himself enough to bite out, still furious but entirely more subdued, “What are you going to do?”

Tyki pulled in a long breath, ran his hands up his face and back through his hair and stayed there for a few seconds, watching Link shooting nervous, scared looks between the two of them. A heavy, frustrated sigh forced its way past Tyki’s lips and he dragged a hand across his brow before pushing himself to stand. “I’ll figure it out,” he said simply, certain confidence making up for the awful lack of ideas, and he walked across the room to Link. Slowly, carefully, he crouched down in front of him and reached out an apologetic hand. 

Link tentatively sniffed at his fingers for a moment before scrunching his big brown eyes up and burying his fuzzy gold snout between his paws. 

Tyki’s fingers brushed over the puppy-soft fur atop Link’s head and, when that didn’t seem to alarm him further, placed his hand on his little head and gently ruffled his velvet ears. “There, there,” he hummed, looking down at the way Link blinked sadly up at him. “I’m sure this isn’t permanent. And anyway,” Tyki shrugged a shoulder, voice somewhat consoling, “everyone loves puppies, whether they’re obedient or not. So you have that going for you.”

A small whine curled out of Link’s throat and he scrunched his eyes up again, tail giving one unenthusiastic thump against the floor.

Tyki breathed a quiet sigh and he reached out to curl his hands beneath Link’s arms - legs? - and lifted him up to hold him close and warm against his chest. Link hooked his paws over Tyki’s shoulders, head tucked beneath Tyki’s chin, and he stood slowly, careful to keep Link secure. He looked around, not quite sure what to do with the puppy or the small tremors he could feel shuddering through Link’s body, and started making for the door. 

“What are you doing?” Allen asked from the hearth when he passed, nervous caution putting him on edge.

“Taking him for a walk,” Tyki answered simply, twisting the doorknob to open onto the moors. 

Doubtful, Allen reminded, “You know that’s not really a dog, right?”

Tyki answered with a look cast over his shoulder and a raised brow, and set off down the stairs and onto the dew-damp grass of the moors. They were on the side of a large rolling hill, spotted with heather and turf, and low, loose-knit clouds drifted by some way below them. Heathy, untamed shrubs spotted the hillside, some flowering with tarns and mums. 

Carefully, Tyki crouched down to lower Link to the ground, the little puppy wriggling out of his hands and scrambling to his feet when he flopped gracelessly onto the ground. Tyki stood and dug through his pockets, and summoned his cigarettes and lighter from the balcony when he found he’d left them up there. 

Link sniffed nervously around the grass at Tyki’s feet while he lit up, his side pressed to Tyki’s leg like glue. Little puppy, scared of the big, wide world. 

Well, perhaps scared was the wrong word for it. Confronted, more like. Overwhelmed, maybe. Cigarette between his lips, Tyki dug his hands deep in his pockets and watched Link sniff and scratch around by his feet, pawing at blades of grass and testing the feel of the soft, wet earth with his too-big feet before stepping out further, reluctantly parting from Tyki’s side for curiosity. 

Shy of the spooky beetles and bugs, but getting bolder. Every now and then he’d look over at Tyki, as though to ensure he was where Link had left him, and if he found he’d trotted off too far he’d turn back and press his little head against Tyki’s ankles. Peer up at him with an almost unintentional plea in his big brown puppy eyes and bound back out onto the moors. 

It was only when he came back to scratch at Tyki’s shoe with a quiet, pleading whine that Tyki figured he wanted some company on this great big exploration of his and shrugged away from where he’d been leaning against the rail of the stairway with a roll of his eyes and, “Okay, okay,” and his exasperation caught on amusement to turn it into something of a laugh.

Link bounded excitedly around Tyki’s feet when he set out onto the hillside, his tail flagging happily when he got them tangled up and Tyki had to stumble to keep from stepping on him, a surprised laugh falling from his lips. “You seem to be very happy over this mishap, Howard,” Tyki teased, nudging him a little with his foot, “and you’re entirely more personable as a puppy. Perhaps we should keep you like this.”

Link grumbled and yipped, and tugged at the hem of Tyki’s pants with his sharp little teeth before letting up and trotting off, winding his way around to a small laurel tree and scuffing around until he found himself a young, whippish stick. He looked wonderfully excited about it, and dragged it about cheerfully, his tail wagging as fast as it could go. It was entirely too long for him, the dragging end catching on gorse and heather and turning him about in wayward circles, and he kept glancing back at Tyki with a wildly excited look on his small face. 

Soon he came to drop it at Tyki’s feet and waddled back a few steps, all but shaking with expectation. A helpless smile tugging at his lips, Tyki bent to pick it up, gave Link a look of playful challenge, and tossed it out a few feet. 

The moment it left his hand Link was bounding across the grass, nose turned up to watch the stick fly overhead, and made a grand leap of half a foot into the air in an effort to catch it which ultimately amounted to his little teeth snapping at nothing, the stick falling into the grass some way away, and Link tumbling rolls across the gorse with a happy little yip. 

Scrambling after it, Link caught it up in his mouth and ran a long circle back to Tyki to drop it at his feet once more, turn tail, and run off without another thought. Like he was so excited over playing fetch that he forgot he was actually… playing fetch. 

Tyki picked up his stick and followed at a lazy stroll, unwilling to let Link get too far out of sight. It wasn’t as though there was anything dangerous out on the moors, but the last thing he needed was Link, stuck as a dog, lost. Worse, maybe, was the thought of him  _ not  _ being stuck as a dog. He’d dropped his clothes in the living room, so it stood to reason that they wouldn’t be miraculously back on his body the moment he changed back. 

So really, the last thing Tyki needed was Link lost in the moors, naked, covered in leaves and twigs and, from the look of the puddle he’d just taken an interest in, mud.

He reached out a tentative paw and placed it carefully on the water’s surface, and drew back sharply from the ripples that trembled out from beneath the cautious touch. He glanced over his shoulder at Tyki briefly, as though looking for reassurance, and Tyki arched a brow back at him.

Link seemed to take that as permission and waded in carefully, and paused to lift a foot out of the water and sniff at the cool mud he found in the grooves of his soft paws. He didn’t quite seem to know what to make of it. Several more cautious rounds, and he seemed to have decided he liked the squishy feel of it, because he was tromping and jumping and splashing happily about, his legs and belly matted all over with mud and his soaked tail wagging with all the exuberance of… a puppy in a puddle. 

Tyki crouched down with a wry smile, arms draped over his knees, and said, “You take quite well to being a dog, don’t you Howard?”

Link gave him a look, standing belly-deep in mud, and huffed a little sound.

Smile breaking into a grin, Tyki reached out a hand and rubbed at Link’s head, tossed his velvet ears and gently roughed his brow. Link huffed and grumbled and whined and dragged himself out of the puddle to stretch up and catch Tyki’s hand between his muddy paws, pin him to the ground and gnaw valiantly at his thumb with sharp little puppy teeth.

Really, Tyki couldn’t help but laugh. 

“The longer you’re here,” he said through a smile, reaching down to scratch at Link’s muddy, matted tummy when he wriggled and rolled onto his back, “the more puppylike you seem to get.” Link twisted and turned under Tyki’s hand, his little legs kicking like mad and his tail wagging so hard it looked as though it was about to fall off. “Not necessarily a bad thing,” Tyki allowed, amusement tugging at the corners of his lips, “but maybe it’s time we start looking at how to get you back to yourself. Hm?”

Link rolled and scrambled onto his feet, bounding away from Tyki’s belly scratches to snap up the stick he’d left lying somewhere in the grass and drag it all of three feet before dropping it in favour of leaping to try catch a brightly-coloured moth which had fluttered from the grass. 

Hardly keeping his laughter to himself, Tyki gave a short, happy whistle and gestured back to the castle when Link’s wide-eyed, inquisitive little head snapped around to look. As he turned to start meandering back to the castle, cigarette burned low, Link took to following close at his heels - though he also took to bounding ahead a few steps to sniff at a lady beetle on the grass and inevitably become tangled up in Tyki’s feet. 

At the stoop he had more than a little trouble scrambling up the steps, so earnest to get inside that Tyki indulged to push the toe of his shoe beneath the little puppy’s rump to prop him up step by eager step. 

And then, pushing through the wedge of the door even as Tyki was opening it, it was muddy wet paws all over the floor and rug. Markedly less afraid of the house now, treading with cautious excitement as he was around table legs and between chairs. 

“Have fun?” Allen asked, wry and sullen from the fireplace, skeptically watching the way Link was muddying the very floors he’d painstakingly swept and polished. “He’s going to come back, right?”

“What, did you miss him?” Tyki asked, voice curled in a taunt. Allen shot him a reprimanding sort of look and Tyki rolled his eyes. “Yes,” he admitted, dipping to catch Link just as he was making as though to run between Tyki’s legs and swinging him up in the air, legs kicking, to keep him from making any more mess which he, when he returned, would inevitably have to clean up himself. “The spell’s nearly worn off.”

“What do you mean,” Allen prodded, as Tyki stooped to pick Link’s clothes from the floor,  _ “worn off?” _

“What,” Tyki laughed, carrying the muddy golden puppy to the foot of the stairs, “you didn’t think I’d whip up something permanent, did you? I had no idea if it was even going to work in the way I  _ wanted  _ it to. Heat some water, would you?”

“You’re really going to  _ bath  _ him?” Allen called up after them.

“He is filthy,” was Tyki’s only answer, and that tiny little puppy of a Link looked sullenly over his shoulder at Tyki with what could only be described as a pout in his tiny little puppy eyes. “What?” Tyki demanded, holding him away from his chest so the mud coagulating in Link’s fur wouldn’t stain his shirt. “I didn’t  _ throw  _ you through that puddle. This is all on you.” And somewhat on Tyki’s hands, too. A little bit of it was caught on the cuffs of his shirt. Nothing a little wash wouldn’t fix. He’d probably just leave the shirt in Tricia’s washing basket next time he stopped by; she was always so lovely about it. 

In the bathroom Tyki placed Link in the dry tub and pushed the plug into place, carefully checked the water before opening the faucet to fill the bath til it was lapping at the top of Link’s back. Link was incredibly happy with his newer, bigger, cleaner puddle, and while Tyki had turned to find some sort of… dog-friendly shampoo, he had taken to paddle-trotting up and down the length of the tub, splashing happily about. 

He was less happy when Tyki took to cleaning him, but there wasn’t much either of them could do otherwise. So Tyki, kneeling outside the tub, had Link’s big puppy feet hooked over his wrist to hold him up on his hind legs so Tyki could scrub the mud from his belly. Link himself seemed very much torn between wanting to be clean and having to go through the shame of  _ being cleaned.  _

And then, quite suddenly, Link’s puppylike helplessness wasn’t a problem at all. 

In the first moment, Tyki had assumed the gold shimmer-cloud was from the bathwater. But, feeling the silk of fur meld into the satin of skin, he pulled his hands away in quite a rush and rocked back on his heels to watch the spell fall away and leave Link himself sitting in the waist-deep bubbles, back pressed to the side of the tub.

Tyki didn’t bother helping the amused smile that pulled at his lips when he watched the tips of Link’s ears turn red as he looked down at his pretty, pale hands and realise what, exactly, had just happened. 

Tentative, shy, cheeks pink with nerves, he turned his head just far enough to glance at Tyki over his hunched shoulders, mud-streaked cheeks stained with a blush, dirt smudged across his sharp little nose. Without a word slipping past his tight lips, he curled in on himself, pressed his face to his rosy knees poking out of the soapy water. 

Tyki simply folded his arms across the edge of the tub, smiling sweet and teasing at the water dripping through Link’s unbound, sopping wet hair. “Did you have a fun little adventure?” he prodded, a lighthearted taunt. 

A small, embarrassed whine curled out of Link’s throat - not unlike the sounds he’d made as a puppy. 

Smile turning gentle, somewhat kind, Tyki reached out a hand to ruffle the top of his messy head and pushed up to stand. “Your clothes are on the counter,” he said simply, amusement turned to something soft, and left Link the privacy to clean himself up, the latch of the bathroom door clicking quietly behind him. 

Downstairs, he offered Allen a quiet smile and a nod to the demanding question he didn’t have to phrase. 

“He’s fine,” he murmured, making for the kitchen and wetting a rag beneath the stream of the tap. “He’s just cleaning himself up.”

Allen relaxed in a thankful huff of blue-red sparks and let himself spool out across the log he’d been anxiously picking at in his lap. As Tyki set to wiping up the smattering of puppy prints which Link had mapped and mazed across the floor, Allen admitted in an abashed mumble, “I don’t think I want him to go.”

Tyki glanced up, a frown flickering across his brow. “He’s not going,” he reasoned, and reached low beneath the table to wipe up the mud Link had left there.

“Yeah,” Allen allowed doubtfully, “but. Until this morning, he might have. And after this, he still might.”

A small smile sat on Tyki’s lips and he shook his head, rested his hands over his knee and looked over at his fire. “He won’t,” he promised, smile turning a little sad for the truth of it. “He doesn’t have anywhere else to go.”

“You’re just getting that?” Allen groused, trying for peeved through his concern.

Tyki breathed a sigh and tried to consider his next words. “I’m just now getting,” he admitted, “that I  _ want  _ to fix him. That isn’t dictated by what he needs.”

Allen’s lips twisted in that way they did when Tyki said something he couldn’t quite deny was somewhat awful. Dissatisfied, but in such a way that he knew he didn’t have basis to say anything about it. They were the same, after all. Between the two of them they only had one heart, and conscience tended to be tied to that. However Allen might feel about anything Tyki said that plucked a string of selfishness, it was a borrowed feeling. 

“Okay,” he allowed, because regardless of the means at least that meant Link would be staying. “I don’t like how you put it,” he admitted, a cautionary reprimand, “but okay.”

“I know,” Tyki said, and finished wiping down the hardwood floor in the warmth of half-satisfied silence. 

He didn’t know how he was going to get the stains out of the rug, so he tossed the cloth in the sink and supposed they could simply stay. It was pretty ugly anyway. That was practically an improvement. 

Sitting down with a huff and a cigarette he probably shouldn’t have been smoking inside, lit off Allen’s wrinkled nose, Tyki let himself sprawl across his chair and looked absently up at the spider-free rafters overhead. Smoke spooling from his lips, trailing from the end of the cigarette, shapeless thoughts drifting off with it.

That first trial had been a failure, clearly, but a spell like that never would have worked even if he  _ had  _ gotten it right. Link’s curse was only going to keep causing more trouble for him, but it had the feeling of being something worth figuring out. Maybe not for Link, and maybe not for Allen’s sense of morality, but maybe for the brief shudder of recognition which had crept through him at the sight of Link’s heavy braid swinging just out of reach. 

He dragged his thumb across his fingertips, remembering the weight of it slipping through his fingers. Silk. A miller’s daughter came to mind, spinning gold from straw, soon followed by the name  _ Rumpelstiltskin.  _ Lies compounding, and costing so much more than what they were worth. 

Tyki moved his lips, dismissed the thought. Not a helpful one. He was back to the beginning, and a curse such as the one Link was burdened with - a caster on the other end just as adamant about keeping him bound as Link had been to escape - would hardly sort itself out. 

If anything, the palpable determination to have Link  _ kept  _ might, through fruitless desperation, metastasise into something that dragged him back to where he’d run from. 

Link had time, but until he deigned to tell Tyki the whole story, there would be no way to hazard how much. 

He came down, around then. Thoughts swirling like smoke past Tyki’s lips, and Link was plucking nervously at the collar of his shirt, fixing his cuffs, cheeks pink with lingering embarrassment. “I’m,” he started to say, hesitating by the foot of the stairs. Tyki’s lazy gaze fell on him, caught the way he’d bundled his still-damp hair up in a high, loose bun to keep from dripping on his neck or ruining his clothes. Skittish eyes, refusing to meet Tyki’s. “I’m sorry.” The tightly-wound cringe of his lips said he was all but sick with nerves.

Tyki answered with a frown, phrased confusion. “Why are you sorry?” he demanded.

Link looked pinned, and absolutely, ruinously stymied. His slim lips parted, and he sealed them together in a tight line when he concluded that he didn’t really have an answer. 

Tyki shook his head, formless smoke huffed past his lips in a brief sigh. “No,” he corrected, looking back at Allen. White-pink fingers curled around a log glowing with cherry embers. “Don’t apologise to me.” He caught himself there, something stuck in his throat. Felt, for a moment, as though he were on the verge of apologising himself. 

But he didn’t. 

Had it really been such an awful thing?  _ Really? _

Now, maybe, but there, out on the moors. Link had been  _ happy.  _ That much had been abundantly clear. A skittish, nervous stray, lost and scared in a house full of monsters. But out there - out in the grass and heather and shrubs and cloud-formed puddles, that had fallen away. Shy, yes, and flighty. But sweet. 

He glanced at Link again, briefly. Looking for if any of that remained. If any of it was  _ him,  _ or if the entire mentality of a hard-done-by dog given a chance to be the pup it insisted it wasn’t was all just a trick of Tyki’s magic.

But, of course not. 

Earnest. That was the word. An earnest, golden stray. Written all over Link’s face in the way he thought he’d made a fool of himself - and thought that was something he ought to  _ apologise  _ for.

Tyki couldn’t say he particularly understood Link - not his eagerness to do right or his inherent need to be useful - but despite himself, Tyki found he was rather more fond of him.

The spell had been a mistake, yes, but everything that had come with it was… nice. 

“It was never going to work anyway,” he admitted, and gestured for Link to take the seat by Tyki’s, angled with the stout table of Tyki’s whiskey between them, “but if you find it as cause to leave, I won’t stop you.”

Link hesitated a moment, torn at the foot of the stairs, before stepping over to sit down, movements tentative and shy. Eyes low on his hands, fingers twining in his lap. “It doesn’t matter,” he said, subdued, somehow defeated, “if you can break it, or not. I can’t exactly step out the door and continue with my life.”

Not with the risk a curse like that posed him, of course not. And it came to light, then - Link sitting in the lounge he’d made as a home for himself with no expectations of Tyki truly being able to fix him. As much as he’d come to them for a cure, he was staying with them for protection. 

What a gamble it must have been, chasing after the moving castle in the hope that the infamous wizard inside might only be awful enough to eat his heart, and not so evil as to steal his will. A gamble, but it was one Link had felt he had no choice but to take. Because anything -  _ anything -  _ was better than what he was running away from.

Even monsters were better than snakes.


	4. Chapter 4

It had become something of a routine, for Link to go to the balcony after waking. Clean clothes on, hair braided neat down his back and a brief stop at the bathroom to splash his face, and he would always take a moment to poke his head around the door built into the side of the castle to see if Tyki needed some prompting to come to breakfast.

Most mornings he was out there, smoking or dozing, but he didn’t seem to hold any particular sort of schedule, so there was no saying where Link might find him if he wasn’t on the balcony. In fact, Link hadn’t seen him since the previous morning. He’d left in something of an irritable huff not long after breakfast, complaining about a _road,_ of all things.

Even if Link hadn’t been inclined to leave the house without Tyki by his side, Allen’s vague explanation of the black door leading _somewhere_ but also _nowhere_ had Link hesitant to stick his nose into the inky blackness which was all he could see beyond the brief splash of light the doorway cast.

Whatever that place was, it seemed almost to swallow whatever touched it. A big, empty Nothing, and Link couldn’t even see which direction Tyki had taken. Through the blankness of it, he couldn’t see him at all.

Allen hadn’t seemed particularly concerned.

“He goes away sometimes,” he’d explained briefly. “Usually just for a night, sometimes a few days. He’ll be back.”

He hadn’t been able to tell Link where it was, exactly, that Tyki had gone.

He wasn’t to be found on the balcony that morning, but something else was. A cloth-bound book laying face down on the seat of the chair where Tyki usually sat, covers spread to hold a page. Curious, Link marked that page with his thumb and lifted it book to read the gold-print title of the embossed cover.

_Grimm’s Fairy Tales._

Well. He had never heard something quite so absurd. Faerie Tales were the most dangerous of all, anyone knew. They’d spin stories of such grandeur - of riches and status and magic and beasts, so unbelievable and woven rich and heavy with spells that they lured their listeners beneath the mountain with their mindless need to hear how the tales ended.

Of course, no one ever came back from below a Faerie Hill. That a compilation of their stories might exist was ridiculous. No one could say how they ended, and what good were half-finished fantasies?

He could reluctantly admit that he was curious, though. Because if anyone could have escaped the Faerie Tales, wouldn’t it be the wizard Joyd?

Cautious, Link spread the book open to the page he’d marked, read through the tiny, cramped, squared-off calligraphy he found there.

 _"Alas," answered the girl, "I have to spin straw into gold, and I do not know how to do it."_ _  
_ _"What will you give me," said the manikin, "if I do it for you?"_ _  
_ _"My necklace," said the girl._ _  
_ _The little man took the necklace, seated himself in front of the wheel, and-_

Sharply, Link snapped the book shut. It certainly _sounded_ like the sort of tale a Faerie would spin a spell into. Link had no intention of being fooled into reading it through to the end. Who knew, truly, what would happen to him if he did?

Reckless of Tyki, to be leaving things like that lying around. That was to say he’d returned, though, and had better be in quite the state to have Link sympathise for him dropping Faerie Tales where anyone might read them.

Storming downstairs, he found Tyki just then stepping back in from the front door with a cup of what smelled like coffee in one hand, a wicker basket of neatly ironed and folded clothes on his hip, and a look on his face of deep-seated dreariness. Hair a mess, only half-dressed, he had the look of a hangover about him.

“You _did_ come home last night, right?” Link prompted, feet planted staunchly at the foot of the stairs.

Tyki seemed to need a moment to process that as a question before raggedly admitting, “Yes,” in brief certainty. Looking down at himself, he offered, “Forgot some stuff,” as explanation to why he’d only just meandered back in through the door.

“Did you have fun?” he asked, words coiled with the promise that he really didn’t much care if Tyki had enjoyed himself.

“Not particularly,” Tyki enunciated, and made as though to brush by Link and take his clothes and coffee upstairs with the intention of coddling his nausea.

“Do you want to tell me why I found a book of Faerie Tales just sitting out in the open?” Link demanded, holding up the book.

Tyki gave Link a bleary blink, and then frowned at the book in his hand. He didn’t seem to quite understand what Link was saying.

“If I hadn’t known better,” he stressed, “I might have read it through to the end! I don’t think even _you_ can save me from a Faerie Hill - and particularly not the way you are now.”

Tyki paused and again blinked confusion between Link’s indignant fury and the book he was holding up like a threat. His thoughts seemed to tick over, and in an instant surprised laughter was spilling past his lips. “Oh, Link,” he mocked, rapping his knuckle against the cover of the book, “it’s not _dangerous._ They’re children’s stories,” he tried to explain away, and made again as though to slip around him and head for the stairs.

“Yes,” he seethed, brows stitched into a scowl, “stories told _to children._ Surely you know how this works.”

“No,” Tyki laughed, shaking his head placatingly, “no, no, they’re not stories told _by_ Faeries. They’re stories told _about_ Faeries. See, here,” he said, putting his coffee on top of the newel to pluck the book from Link’s hand. Letting the book fold open to the page it’d been pinned to all night, he read in a voice coloured with amusement, _“-in his anger he plunged his right foot so deep into the earth that his whole leg went in, and then in rage he pulled at his left leg so hard with both hands that he tore himself in two._ The end,” he emphasised pointedly, glancing up at Link’s horror with a teasing smile curled at his lips. “They’re just stories,” he repeated, closing the book and pressing it back into Link’s fear-numb hands. “They won’t hurt you.”

“Why,” Link started as Tyki brushed past, and turned to ask, “Why are you giving it to _me?_ Don’t you need it?”

Tyki shook his head, offered a strange smile over his shoulder. Plasticky and dissatisfied. “I had a thought stuck in my head for a while,” he said, “but it turned out to be quite useless.”

Link’s brows knit into a frown and he looked down at the book in his hands. Carefully, he opened it to that same page.

 _“Perhaps your name is Rumpelstiltskin?”_ _  
_ _"The devil has told you that! The devil has told you that!" cried the little man, and in his anger he plunged his right foot so deep into the earth that his whole leg went in, and then in rage he pulled at his left leg so hard with both hands that he tore himself in two._

Children’s stories, he’d said. With a gruesome ending like that, Link couldn’t imagine any child who would thrill to read it.

Heavily, he sat down, and thumbed back to the start of the book. An anthology, it seemed from the row of contents. _Aschenputtel, Hansel and Gretel, The Devil with the Three Golden Hairs._ Link had no idea what to make of it.

But, if anything, Tyki had at least proven that they weren’t dangerous. “Allen,” he called distractedly, turning the pages to find the beginning of the first story, “you say you’ve never read a book, right?”

“How would I?” Allen asked, doubtful.

Link glanced up, a small smile teasing at the corner of his lips. “Would you like me to read one to you?” he offered, lifting the little thing like a suggestion.

Skeptical, Allen frowned and asked, “How would you do that?”

Link frowned back and reasoned, “Well, I’ll read the words, and say them to you.”

The demon looked absolutely lost. “It’s written in _words?”_ he stressed, as though the idea had never occurred to him.

“How else did you think it would be written?” Link countered, and Allen floundered for a moment.

“Nonsense, mostly,” he admitted, sheepish. “Like, thought-sounds. That’s not really words, right?”

“It’s written in _words,”_ Link emphasised, that unhelpable little smile back to tugging at his lips. “Would you like me to read them to you?” he asked again.

Allen looked absolutely thrilled. The thought of having something _read_ to him had clearly never occurred, and Tyki was clearly uninclined. The poor thing had been deprived of literature all his life - hadn’t even known that books were written in _words._ How utterly absurd. Link would be sure to right that.

“Once upon a time,” he started, crossing his ankle over his thigh and settling in to read, “there was a soldier who had served the king loyally for many long years…”

The further Link read, the tighter Allen clung to every word. That a story - a real, honest story and all the endless possibilities that entailed - could be so enthralling to him only made it more fun for Link to read.

Tyki brushed by, once, on his way out the door, and gave them a curious look. At Link, settled deep in his chair, and Allen, eagerly straining as close to the hearth’s edge as he could reach.

“The witch became furious, let him fall back in the well, and walked away,” Link was reading as Tyki paused to peer over his shoulder. “The poor soldier fell to the damp floor without being injured. The blue light continued to burn, but how could that help him?”

“I forgot all about this one,” Tyki murmured consideration, and folded his arms atop the back of the chair to read along over Link’s head, shushed irritably by Allen.

“He saw that he would not be able to escape death,” Link continued as though he hadn’t heard. “He sadly sat there for a while. Then he happened to reach into his pocket and found his tobacco pipe, which was still half full. _This will be my last pleasure,_ he thought, pulled it out, lit it with the blue light, and began to smoke.”

“He’s got the right idea,” Tyki considered, and Link heard him reach into his pocket for a cigarette, lit with the small yellow flame he kept with him.

“After the fumes had wafted about the cavern,” Link hummed his continuation, “suddenly there stood before him a little dwarf, who said, ‘Master, what do you command?’”

Allen cooed out an awed sort of sound, and Tyki indulged a quiet laugh at his amazement.

It became part of their routine, then. Once Link had changed his clothes, braided his hair and washed his face, he’d go to the balcony to bring Tyki down for breakfast. He’d cook and they’d eat, and Allen would usually kick up some fuss about doing all the work without a shred of reward until Tyki finished with the newspaper he’d collected off the Kingsbury doorstep and tossed it into Allen’s eager flames.

As Link cleaned up, Tyki prepared for his day, and of an evening - once all their errands were run and duties were met and Tyki had mixed together the spells he’d sold and Link had cleaned up after him all over again - Link settled into Tyki’s chair while Tyki busied himself over his workbench or readied himself for going out, and he read _Grimm’s Fairy Tales_ to Allen’s rapture.

Sometimes Tyki would offer to indulge Link’s company when he left the castle for some reason or another. Every few days he’d take Link to the market by Porthaven Harbour, stand close by his shoulder with a hand never straying far from Link’s wrist while Link picked through fruits and vegetables, and sorted fresh fish and meats.

There was rarely an incident - even there, in the churning, milling crowd. But even if Link were to find himself caught up in an order, Tyki’s hand would be at his elbow in an instant, lips murmuring counter-commands by his ear.

It was a relief he couldn’t quite phrase, having Tyki by his side, and Link was cautious to stray more than a foot out of reach.

Kingsbury was something else entirely, on those occasions Tyki ushered Link out the door in a whirl too quick to phrase reluctance. There was no hesitation for Tyki to keep a hand at Link’s back, or an arm draped over his shoulders. Despite that his temperament was no less given to change with his mood, he had yet to do more than usher Link closer against his side.

Bartering with shopkeeps, he’d seen Tyki’s gold tongue turn soft and mean when a deal tasted sour, but as rare as it was for frustration to linger he never seemed to make his bad mood Link’s duty to bear.

It was on one such trip that Tyki pointed them in the direction of the national library, in King’s Square; right by the cathedral. He told Link he was looking for a certain spell - one he’d found some time ago and long since lost.

Inside it was dusty and deep, and dimly lit by oil lamps, long shelves reaching high into the shadowy rafters.

Link had a strange feeling that he could get easily lost in there, but the thought wasn’t backed by cautious fear. Intrigue, moreso, and curiosity. There were thousands of books lining each shelf, and he hazarded that there might be more than a hundred shelves delving deep into the muffled silence of the store.

He found he wasn’t too shy to wander some ways off when Tyki dropped his hand from his shoulder with something of a comforting smile and disappeared amongst the shelves in his search.

Link found himself drawn to the books, fingertips dragging over dusty spines, eyes reading the titles with meandering curiosity. He’d almost run out of stories to give Allen. Maybe he’d find something there for them to read once they’d finished _Grimm’s._

Absently, he pulled a book from the shelf and flipped it open, eyes dragging down the page.

“Can I getcha anything?”

Link startled, snapped the book shut as he rushed to glance up. Right at the top of the towering shelf, shadowed by the dim light, something peered down at him. Stumbling over his surprise - and the strange circumstance that the Something had presented itself to him - Link asked, “I’m sorry?”

Through the dim light it seemed to split into a grin, and before Link could so much as pull in a breath, the - well, the _boy_ on top of the shelves had dropped down and alighted on the floor with a sound like the rustle of dry pages. “What are you looking for?” he prompted, smile stretching wider at Link’s stunned silence. Messy red hair thrown every which way, a patch covering one of his eyes, and a set of teeth which almost looked too sharp.

“I’m,” Link started, stilted, not entirely sure what to make of him. “I’m looking for Fairy Tales,” he admitted.

The boy pursed his lips and whistled, low and appreciative. “Dangerous stuff,” he remarked, turning to lead Link through the maze of cluttered shelves. “For your kind, at least,” he added, a glance tossed over his shoulder. “Gramps got them straight from the Faeries’ mouths, and all they asked for in return was a little bit of magic. You know, those compulsion curses,” he continued absentmindedly, blind to the way Link’s breaths curled tight in his throat, lungs static. “That’s what they do, see?” he added. “Drag you down under the Hill and make you their pet.”

Hands numb with complex terror, Link forced himself to breathe, and forced himself to keep his silence.

 

* * *

 

The Library looked as it ever did, and the same tang of old magic fell like ozone on the back of Tyki’s tongue. As deep and complex as the alleys of bookways loomed, Tyki knew it was impossible to get lost unless you didn’t wish to be found. More than a few had chosen the Bookman’s sanctuary over the rest of their lives, and more than many had tried to steal from him, only to perish.

He could hear the Apprentice following him atop the shelves - a whisper of turned pages and the baiting flicker of a translucent tail.

He paused at a junction and glanced up. There was nothing to see. “If you’re looking to be helpful,” he suggested to the dusty air and the silent tomes surrounding him, “perhaps you could keep my friend from losing himself.”

There was a long beat of silence, the Apprentice’s eye pinned on him from somewhere in the dim light. Without a word it skittered off, the crinkled flutter of a page caught in a breeze.

Tyki breathed a sigh and kept on his way, weaving through the convoluted maze of shelves, the spaces between growing narrower and the bounds of contained information grew denser. A forest of knowledge, and when he finally slipped through to the clearing in the center, there lay a dragon.

Its scales were folded pages, each delicate shape printed with script so fine none could read it but him. The knowledge of everything written down the length of its body, curled and piled into tense, arthritic coils. Its eyes, when they blinked open, had once been so dark as to appear black, but were now milked over with blindness.

“Bookman,” Tyki greeted, quietly reserved.

The old dragon’s eyes fluttered closed on its deep breath, and open again on the dry, weary sigh it huffed.

“I have a question,” he stated, voice subdued to the labour it took the ancient beast to awaken itself.

“I have answers,” it said, voice as gravelled and old as parchment aged to crumble, “but what do you have for me?”

“I created a spell, just recently,” he said, pulling loose papers from the pocket of his loose jacket, “which sets a fire that doesn’t go out, which is not hot to the touch and only burns the things you intend it to burn. Something you could keep in your pocket, but use to light your smoke.” Carefully, he set the pages before the dragon’s nose, and it reached out a slow claw to pin them in place while its blind eyes dragged over the enchantment.

After a long moment its lip curled in something of a garish smile, paper-dry grey-white teeth bared, and it said, “Show me that it works, and I’ll answer your question.”

The corner of his mouth pulled into an answering smile, Tyki dug into his pocket for his box of cigarettes, shook one out to place between his lips and held the other out for the old paper dragon to take between its claws. Readily, he drew out the blue light he’d cast to life and held it in his hand to light the end of his smoke before passing it off for the dragon to admire. “The thought came to me,” he said after pulling in a long drag, “from a children’s story, of all things.”

“Is it about children’s stories you wish to know?” the Bookman asked, fitting the cigarette between its sharp teeth and lighting the end with the pocket fire.

“I’d like to know of the curse that the boy I brought here is under,” he corrected, “and I’d like to know how to break it.”

The Bookman hummed and sighed, a deep rumbling thing caught low in its throat, and it pondered that over the cigarette smoke it let pour from its flared nose. Blind eyes turned distant and unseeing, it mused, “It’s the same spell we gave the Fae, but it’s not the _same_. The intentions,” it said, blind eyes staring past Tyki, “change its nature.”

“What was the intention?” Tyki pressed, and the dragon took its time pulling the cigarette from its mouth, tapping out the ash, and taking another long drag.

“You’d call it _greed,”_ it rumbled, “but it isn’t. Not quite. I can’t phrase it, though,” it said, “in a way you would understand. It was a snake’s hunger that cast that spell. Not a human’s.”

A frown creased Tyki’s brow, vexed intrigue. A snake. Link had made it clear he wasn’t particularly fond of them.

“If you want to break it,” the Bookman said, “you’ll keep searching for a way. But you won’t find one. Not in the place you’re looking.”

Tyki lifted his chin, jaw set stern. “Will it ever be broken?” he demanded.

The dragon pulled in another deep gust of smoke, and breathed it out slowly, head lowering to rest back on its rigid coils, milky eyes slipping shut. “That will be up to him.” It pulled in a deep breath and, voice more weary rumble than anything, asked, “Have you been dreaming, lately?”

Tyki blinked at it, confused. “I don’t,” he answered, simple and blank. “I don’t dream.”

The dragon didn’t respond.

With a quiet breath Tyki watched the Bookman fall back into its slumber and turned to find his way back through its lair, every book on every shelf a token of loot taken from someone seeking knowledge.

Focused on finding Link, the magic purveying the library led him through meandering corridors and mapless mazes to find him standing at the foot of one of many, many shelves, looking up to where the Apprentice was rummaging through books stacked halfway up to the ceiling - dressed like a _human_.

Intuitive, really. Tyki hadn’t exactly _told_ Link they would be wandering peacefully through a dragon den.

“What are you looking for?” Tyki asked, and Link turned to look at him, sharp with surprise.

“I’m running out of stories to read Allen,” he admitted, glancing up to where the Apprentice had dug out a book and was dropping down through the air towards them with the whisper of dry pages brushing against each other - very un-human-like, but Link didn’t seem particularly alarmed. When he alighted, he held the heavy book out for Link to take with a wide, satisfied grin. “Lavi offered to show me the records they hold on Faerie Tales,” Link reasoned, accepting the book with a curt, polite smile.

A frown plucking his brow, Tyki reached out to take the book from Link’s hands before he could so much as open the heavy leather cover. Surreptitious, he sniffed the spine and almost recoiled from the heavy tang of lightning it left on the back of his tongue. Like iron and copper and thunder’s ore.

He pulled back, nose wrinkled in distaste, and shook his head. “No,” he said, pushing the tome back into the Apprentice’s hands. “Not this one.”

“Why _not_ that one?” Link demanded, frustrated offence searing him with a scowl.

Tyki gave him a simple smile, the taste of ozone still lingering in his throat, and said, “Because it reeks of magic. Those aren’t Grimm’s or Perrault’s or Anderson’s; they’re from the Faeries. The exact thing you were so terrified of a week ago,” he added, shooting Link a look of pointed reprimand.

“Well,” the Apprentice mocked, “what did you expect? He asked for _Faerie Tales.”_

“Who are Perrault and Anderson?” Link asked, confused frown wrinkling his brow.

“You’ve caught _my_ interest,” the young Bookman added, his single eye narrowing piqued curiosity at Tyki’s face.

“I’ll explain outside,” Tyki promised Link, eyes an unwavering warning against the Apprentice’s keen interest. Hand falling to the small of Link’s back, Tyki set the grand doors of the Library in his mind, and made off back the way he’d come.

“How do you know the way?” Link demanded as they wove through the intricate corridors with unerring certainty.

“I don’t,” Tyki admitted, “but if you know what you want and walk with a purpose, the Library tends to bring it to you.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Link sniffed, and glanced down at Tyki’s empty hands. “Are we really leaving without anything?” he asked.

“I already got what I came for,” Tyki reassured as they broke through to the foyer, the doors standing before them. “I only needed an answer to a question.”

“Did you get it?” Link asked, doubtful.

“Barely,” Tyki scoffed, catching Link’s hand in his and dragging him out into the bright midmorning of Kingsbury’s central square. _“Dragons,”_ he huffed with a shake of his head, leading Link down the high stairs and onto the paved square. “They’ve got a fair exchange rate for _selling_ information, but don’t think they won’t take something for free if you’re dangling it in front of their noses,” he added, shot Link a short glance of reprimand.

“I’m sorry?” Link demanded, miffed.

“They don’t have Grimm’s,” he said, arm slipping up from Link’s hand to drape around his shoulders, held him close against his side as they moved through the milling crowd. “They don’t even know about him. If you want more fairy tales, just _tell_ me,” he reprimanded with a fond roll of his eyes. “You won’t be finding them here,” he reasoned, gesturing vaguely at nothing.

Forceful, Link said, “That’s not what I meant,” and then demanded to know, “there were _dragons_ in there?”

Tyki hummed lighthearted affirmation and said, “Sure, you met one.” Most of the danger of Link’s comfort zone had passed, now they were out of the den. “The Bookman was building his library here before the monarchy started building Kingsbury. That little helper of his has only been around the past couple of centuries, I hear.”

“Lavi,” Link muttered vaguely. “He’s…”

“A Knowledge Dragon,” Tyki nodded, “yes. Though,” he admitted, _“Lavi._ So far as I know, they don’t have names. But,” he allowed, casting a smile down at Link, “they do know everything there is to know, so he probably gave you that name for a reason. Hold on to it.”

“A _dragon,”_ Link repeated, dull with surprise.

At least he wasn’t asking after Tyki’s question.

At least he wasn’t asking after the answer. Rather than give him some clue, all the Bookman had done was banish any ideas of saving Link that Tyki might have had - but to tell Link that would be foolish indeed.

Tyki would find a way. He’d already decided that. Being told he’d find a dead end for every hundred paths he chose to walk down, however, was far from reassuring, and a slow-burning frustration at the Bookman’s words was just then settling into the pit of his stomach.

 

* * *

 

Late that night, Link found Tyki on the balcony. He didn’t seem quite right, but Link couldn’t put his finger on why. The glass jar by his seat was glowing with the embers of cigarettes slowly burning out. Stars in a bottle. He didn’t look entirely steady - which wasn’t to say he looked _unsteady,_ but the care with which he put the filter of his half-burned cigarette to his lips read that he didn’t quite trust himself to move thoughtlessly.

“Are you alright?” Link asked, hand resting on the weather-worn wood of the doorframe.

“I’m alright,” Tyki said, blinking over at him. It would have been an odd thing to say, Link supposed, if not for the way he stressed his words. Emphasis written as though something was wrong - just not with him.

Cautious, Link stepped through the door, kept himself pressed to the far side of the narrow balcony. Back against the rusted rail, hands wound around it. Quiet, voice subdued, he asked, “Are you sure?”

Tyki looked out across the moors, down the sloping hills and rocky outcrops to the subtle glimmer and glow of the town in the valley. Down at Link’s Market Chipping. The castle shuddered and creaked around them in a comforting sort of tempo. Smoke spilling past his lips, face half-lit from the warm light slinking in through the door Link had left ajar, he murmured to ask, “Have you been dreaming lately?”

That sounded somewhat odd too. Less as though he were asking, more as though he were reciting. “Who asked you that?” Link prodded, a frown flickering across his brow.

“Someone,” Tyki hummed, eyes distant on the town, “who seems to think I should be.”

Link watched him, swallowed because he wasn’t sure what to say. “Do you?” he asked, not entirely sold on if he _should_ be asking.

Tyki pulled in a deep, slow breath, as careful as the way he leaned over to ash his cigarette over the rail, and let it fall from his chest in a quiet, calculated sort of way. “What do you dream about?” he asked rather than answer.

Link’s lips twitched in a subtly unhappy way, hands curled tighter around the rail, and he blinked. He looked down at his home, lights glowing cold with distance, and said, “I don’t know. My dreams are very mundane. What I did today, what I’ll do tomorrow. Things I was doing months ago. There’s nothing spectacular about them,” he admitted.

He could feel Tyki’s eyes on his face, and he refused to meet them.

“Sometimes I dream about going home,” he said, quiet, and didn’t tell Tyki how those dreams usually ended. A bakery full of sleeping friends and a hollowed-out boy waiting for him, sitting up on the counter. A bright smile, like Link was everything he wanted to fill himself with. Two strawberry milkshakes by his side and an excited voice which seemed to echo dully in the silence of the empty bakery.

Sleeping, or dead.

A snake coiled around Link’s chest, tighter and tighter and tighter.

_Drink up, Link!_

“I don’t think dreams are very valuable,” he said quite simply.

Tyki blinked at him, and then turned to follow Link’s eyes down to Market Chipping. “I never used to think so, either,” he said, and brought a glass to his lips, and it was then Link realised the problem was that he was drunk.

“Are you okay?” he asked again - demanded, really. A frown stitched across his brows.

“Are you?” Tyki asked, looking back at him.

Link swallowed back any fruitless denial he could feel bubbling under his tongue and let any prickled defensiveness fall out of him with a breath turned to a sigh. He stepped forwards and extracted the glass from Tyki’s hand. He didn’t make as though to fight it. A step back, and Link paused. He wasn’t sure what exactly he felt as he looked at Tyki right then.

It wasn’t pity - not quite. But something low and long and sad.

He brought a cigarette to his lips, his gaze down on the town in the valley, and Link realised all in a moment that he looked very lonely.

It wasn’t in the set of his shoulders or the look in his eyes, but there seemed to be a weight draped over him like a mantle. That sardonic carelessness of his. A resignedness. He seemed, without uncertainty, to not much care for the world.

That was a very lonely thing indeed.

Link thought he might understand loneliness, at the very least. Now more than ever.

A quiet breath falling past his lips, he pressed his back to the side of the castle and slid down to sit on the rough boards of the balcony. “Let’s not talk about dreams,” he suggested, subdued, and Tyki glanced down at him.

“What should we talk about?” he asked, and Link’s lips twitched some small degree in something of a smile.

“Tell me about your family,” he entreated, and Tyki scoffed some amused sort of laugh.

“They’re awful,” he said with such a fondness that Link could only believe it, a kind of warmth in his chest blooming to the way Tyki spoke and kept speaking, talking to fill the cold silence of a world that had no real place for them.

Two lonely people, enjoying the simple comfort of each other’s company.

 

* * *

 

Tyki was still asleep when Link got up the next morning. Not surprising - he’d had far more to drink than Link had anticipated. It hadn’t read in the way he spoke, or his manner of speech. Clear, convoluted words, with that same old current of cryptic intention that had Link struggling to figure out what, exactly, he meant.

No, it only really hit Link that Tyki was _that drunk_ when he made as though to stand, announcing his intention of taking a shower, and stumbled heavily enough against the balcony rail that Link surged to catch his lapels in a momentary panic at the possibility of him tipping over the edge and falling to his death on the moors.

At Link’s insistence, the shower was foregone for the sake of walking Tyki to his door, Link keeping cautious hand fisted in the back of his shirt, and letting him fall with a gusty sigh onto the tangled blankets of his messy bed.

“What are you doing?” Tyki had asked of the star-spotted ceiling - truly star-spotted, Link realised when he glanced up. An endlessly clear sky stretching over his head, the deepest blue stretching forever to be filled with the sparkling glow of an unfamiliar river of stars and galaxies.

“Helping you,” Link answered, crouching to pull tykis shoes from his feet.

Tyki breathed a quiet laugh up to the constellations above him and didn’t make any attempt to move. Voice a low murmur, as though he truly couldn’t conceive why Link would ever want to try, he asked, “Now, why would you want to do something like that?”

Link stood, and turned to place Tyki’s shoes by the door, neat. With his back turned, he cautiously brushed his hands together. “You told me to make myself useful,” he reminded.

“I didn’t _tell_ you,” Tyki reminded, and Link heard him sit up, glanced over his shoulder to watch him pull his socks off, pop the top few buttons of his shirt before tugging it over his head.

Hurriedly, Link turned his back, passed his fingers over his brow as though to push back the blush he could feel already staining his cheeks.

Tyki breathed a sigh - something of a laugh, really. “What could you possibly owe me,” he murmured, words woven with something of a fond confusion, “that you feel compelled to help me with anything.”

Slow, cautious, Link turned to face him. Eyes worn with tired mockery, lips twisted into a wry smile.

A sigh fell from Link’s lips and he stepped up to place feather-light hands at Tyki’s shoulders, urge him into laying back against the pillows. “Everything,” he admitted, voice quiet with regretful thanks as he caught a corner of the tangled blanket and pulled it over his useless sorcerer. Fingertips lingering in the dip beneath Tyki’s bare collarbone, an inch from the starburst scar burned through the cavity of his chest where his heart should have been. “Don’t you know that?” he asked, and Tyki’s eyes fell closed on the quiet laugh he scoffed. “I owe you everything,” Link repeated, and Tyki shook his head as though nothing Link could say would make him believe it.

He left Tyki to sleep, and opened the door a crack that morning to find him splayed across the bed, blankets tangled around his legs, hair a mess, face buried in his hundreds of pillows. A cautious glance shot up at the ceiling of his room showed it was only hung with pieces of glass, light shattering off a thousand shards in a thousand shades from the sun creeping in through the window.

Cautiously considerate, Link stepped into the room and made for the window, fingers curling into the heavy velvet of the deep green curtains hung on either side.

He paused there, eyes caught on the view outside the window.

Perhaps it wasn’t so different from the Porthaven Harbour that he could see from the one in his own room, but it certainly _felt_ different. Rocky cliffs dropped out beneath the edge of the room and far below a calm ocean was tearing itself against the coast. Gulls coasted on warm breezes, and some distance away Link could see some decidedly foreign ships sailing by.

Wherever it was, it seemed a good day for it.

Link glanced at Tyki - thought of his dark skin and the vaguely foreign curve of his words.

Carefully, Link pulled the curtains closed. Unfamiliar constellations and an unrecognisable coastline. He was a long way from home.

Link wondered if Tyki missed it, or if he simply didn’t want to forget who he was. He imagined, for someone like Tyki, that might be all too easy to do. He had given up his heart, after all.

As it was, Tyki was asleep - and hungover besides - and Allen was still dozing in his embers when Link made his way downstairs. Without making as though to stoke the fire, Link made himself a simple sandwich of what they had left in the pantry - some ham, cheese, and a touch of mustard relish he’d mixed together earlier that week.

Looking around the tidy living room as he ate, clean morning sun falling in through the windows, Link found there wasn’t much for him to do but wait for Tyki to wake up. Of course, they needed fresh food and to order more wood for Allen, but it wasn’t as though Link could go out on his own.

Thinking about it, though, it wasn’t likely Tyki would be of a mood to be leaving the house until long after the markets had packed away their wares, and it certainly wasn’t as though they could put it off for another day.

Not when Link had to resort to a sandwich as plain as what he was eating for _breakfast,_ of all things.

What was the harm, really?

He might be made to pay a few coins extra, or to look over wares he didn’t have much interest in, but in the grace of customer service a stallholder was hardly going to _demand_ that a customer buy something.

Ten minutes. That’s all it would take. The markets weren’t far from the Porthaven door, and he would be back before Tyki was even close to waking up. Not that he would _forbid_ it, but he knew as well as Link how stupid it would be for him to go out alone.

Not that he needed to know.

Eyes falling closed, Link pulled in a careful breath. What were the chances of something going wrong, _really._

Slim. Slender.

Next to nothing.

The door wasn’t far from the markets. If worst turned worse, he would be quick to come back.

Particular, Link pulled in another breath, and let it out with just as much caution. It would be fine. Of _course_ it would. And-

And he was miles from Market Chipping. He was miles from his nightmares.

Link pushed himself to his feet and took his plate to the sink, carefully washed and dried it without too much clatter of noise. Pulled on his shoes at the doorstep, dug the coin pouch from the pocket of Tyki’s coat, picked the wicker basket from the coat rack and paused at the door, hand trailing quiet nerves down the weave of his braid.

Trying to find something he’d forgotten. Something worth throwing the whole idea away for.

His fingers curled around the tail of his braid and he glanced down, missing the familiar silk of red ribbon he’d taken to tying off his hair with. Just an elastic. He must have left it on the end table.

Link was all of halfway through turning his back on the door to go fetch it before he stopped himself, eyes fluttering closed, lips pinched tight.

A red ribbon wasn’t worth going hungry for - and certainly wasn’t worth having Allen go out over.

Abrupt, he turned the door’s handle to Porthaven’s blue and stepped through onto the uneven cobblestones of the coastal town, to the familiar gulls’ cries and taste of salt in the air.

It was nothing. Door closed behind him, Link took a moment to breathe. And then he stepped off down the road, on his way to the market. Easy as anything. Easy as it had ever been, before things had turned so upside down. But he was miles away from his hometown, and miles away from his nightmares, and there was nothing on earth that would scare him half as much.

He was only weak if people saw him as such.

Shoulders straight, he hefted his basket, and walked with determined purpose through the thickening crowd.

He’d had more than enough practice at deafening himself to crowds. A rowdy murmur worth nothing, not a single word distinguished. Not a breath of danger to be had there. In a crowd, who was going to address him but for people whom he addressed first? There was little enough danger, shopping on his own. If anything, it was foolish for him to have to wait on Tyki to be able to go at all.

His presence at Link’s elbow was comforting, yes, and reassuring, and something close to sorely missed, but Link did not _rely_ on it. He didn’t _need_ it. And he found it a very simple thing to pick his fresh vegetables and herbs, and pay for them without incident.

The fishmongers were worse - a rowdy bunch, loudly hawking their wares, but even they were cautious of _demanding_ customers buy from them. There was something to be said for charisma, and nothing at all for rudeness. A hefty, healthy-looking trout soon stained a paper bag in his basket, plans already unfolding through his mind over lemon-steamed fillets for dinner, and Link found himself at the meats. A leg of ham to join the rest; he was about to order Allen’s usual pine when the thought struck him that he might smoke it with maple.

So it was, with the order being placed to deliver to the Porthaven address, and the extra maple under his arm, Link was about to turn for home when he heard someone call, “Hey, Blondie!”

Fearing he’d dropped something, or at some point miscalculated how much to pay, he turned indeed to find one of the fishmongers - only, one whose table he tended to avoid, for once selling them half-rotted meat.

Still more curious than concerned, Link allowed himself to hesitate a moment.

“Yeah, you,” he approved, weaving his way through the crowd with his most winning buy-my-wares smile. “I see you around here a bit.”

“Every few days or so,” Link admitted, caution tepidly outweighing curiosity. Idle conversation was something he’d made a point to avoid. “I prefer to keep fresh ingredients,” he reasoned, words stressed on a veiled jab.

“Where’s your man?” he asked, coming to stand before Link - tower over him, really - with that smile unabated.

“My _man?”_ Link repeated back, blinking affronted indignation.

“Tall, dark, handsome,” the monger mocked, hands planted on his hips. “Doesn’t leave your side.”

Crisp, Link answered, “Indisposed,” and made as though to turn away with every intention of returning to the castle.

The man laughed in a big, loud sort of way which had Link’s skin prickling with panic as he draped an unwelcome arm around Link’s shoulders, smelling heavily of fish and reeking of ill intentions when he mocked, “Come on, sweetheart, I’m joking. Give me a smile, would you?”

Panic crescending, every muscle in Link’s face felt as though needles were being driven deep under his skin until he allowed his curse to force a smile onto his face, sharp and forced and heavy and fake, and his heart was pounding in his chest and the monger’s arm was where Tyki’s would have been, and every part of him was sick with the need to _leave._

“Excuse me,” he forced out, voice almost unsteady with the raize of terror in his cold blood, smile still forced on his lips, “but I’m rather busy,” he explained, ducking out from under his arm to keep a shudder of gut-chilling disgust at bay.

A brisk nod and let that be that, but as he turned and made as though to continue on, the monger caught his shoulder to turn him back and demanded, his grin as wooden and sharp as Link’s, “What, you won’t stick around for a drink?”

 _“No,”_ Link snapped emphatically, smile dropping from his face, cheeks feeling ugly and cramped and worn.

The monger, for all of a moment, seemed too stymied to do much of anything, and Link took everything that moment gave him to slip away through the crowd, deafen himself to anyone who might call after him and, panicked fear thrumming his heart red and cold in his chest, took the quickest steps he could muster without breaking into a run.

Head down, he kept moving. Lips pressed tight, gut churning sick, he didn’t dare look at anyone, didn’t dare speak, hardly dared _breathe_ until the castle’s door was closed firmly behind him. Eyes pressed shut, stooping to lower the basket to the ground only to find he didn’t quite have the strength in his weak legs to push himself back up from his crouch.

Safe, though. He was safe.

Whispering a sigh of shaky relief, Link lowered his head to his knees and forced himself to _breathe._ Let the cold knot of filthy panic uncurl.

And Tyki - god, _Tyki._ Couldn’t bring a single thing to mind which Link might have cause to thank him for. What a fool. What an _idiot._

What an idiot Link was, thinking he could rely on the whole world to keep him safe.

The only one who could do that - the only one who had _proven_ he could do that, willingly and without question - was someone who Link couldn’t think of ways to thank beyond making sure he was fed and well-rested. That was all Link could _do_ for him when Tyki deserved-

Everything.

Everything. Because he’d saved Link’s _life,_ and continued to do so every day.

There wasn’t anything in the world Link could give him that would stand a light to everything Tyki couldn’t even _acknowledge_ he was doing for Link. And so, face pressed to his knees, all Link could do for himself right then was drag in shaky breath after shaky breath, until eventually he might be steady enough to stand.


	5. Chapter 5

By the time Tyki found it in him to wander downstairs - signing off the comfortable darkness of his room as reason to keep sleeping until he realised the curtains had been drawn - Link was cooking up breakfast. Or, something like it. 

Lunch, maybe?

Whatever it was, it smelled like bacon and eggs and fried tomato, and Tyki was extraordinarily interested in putting it in his body.

It turned out, of course - of  _ course,  _ because this was  _ Link,  _ and even if he were to be so lazy as to cook  _ bacon and eggs  _ it would have to be impossibly flamboyant - maple-smoked ham and eggs and, yes, fried tomato, all spiced with oregano and mint. Because it was  _ Link,  _ and he had a way of making the most absurd combinations taste unrecognisably fantastic.

It was absolutely ridiculous, and smelled absolutely ridiculously delicious, and Tyki was in no state of sobriety  _ or  _ drunkenness to be enjoying it for what it was. In fact, from the dryness of his tongue and fuzziness of his head, he might very well say he was hungover. 

He sat himself at the table and blinked down at the plate, body heavy with exhaustion and vague nausea. Through the haze of absent comprehension, he mumbled - in more of a grumble, really, “Weren’t we out of food?”

“We were,” Link answered. Brusque, simple, and forcibly light. Tyki glanced at him. Even through his absent comprehension he knew what that meant. Link swallowed, forced a small smile onto his lips, and let it drop just as quickly. Abashed, almost nervous, he explained, “I went out.”

Tyki paused for a long moment, caution flaring in the pit of his stomach. At length he forced himself to nod, and turned back to his food with an accepting hum. “How was it,” he asked, bland and polite and carefully expressionless.

“Fine,” Link answered, plain and somewhat crisp. 

Careful of his words of cautious reprimand, Tyki chewed them all up with his breakfast and swallowed them down to sit heavy in the pit of his stomach. Link had proven over and again that he was an adult of his own making. He wasn’t in the castle under lock and key. He was there for  _ protection.  _ By his own means.

Link knew, more than Tyki, how dangerous his curse could be. 

Link could make his own decisions.

He settled into his seat, set at the corner to Tyki’s, with his eyes on his plate. Quietly, without prompting, he admitted, “I don’t think I should, again. Go alone,” he clarified, needless and nervous, fingers plucking at a napkin, fiddling with his fork.

Tyki nodded carefully and thought about what might be the right thing to say. Rather, discarded anything that struck him as the  _ wrong  _ thing to say. Eventually he settled on reminding Link, “You can do what you want, you know?” 

It sounded better in his head. More… compassionate. 

Well, tone of voice went a long way to lending words sentiment, and from the fact Link had seemed to nod deeper into his regret rather than shoot Tyki a sharp look, he seemed to have phrased it right. 

“I know,” he admitted, voice small, fingers curled tight and anxious in his napkin. “I don’t,” he started, and then paused on his hesitation before managing to make himself admit, “want to be alone.”

Another beat of silence, Tyki putting all the care his worn-out mind could piece together into choosing what to say. “Well,” he proposed at length, “I don’t have anywhere to be today, and it seems we’ve already done the shopping.” A wry smile cast at Link, in some hope of lifting his mood - or at least fixing his tangled-up appetite. “Let’s say we all just stay at home,” he suggested, carving a corner of ham and letting the sweet-smoked taste melt over his tongue. “Good?” he prompted.

Link offered a small nod, eyes down, lips tight. 

“Good,” Tyki agreed with himself, a quiet sort of sigh, and brushed his fingers across his brow. Good.

_ Something  _ had happened. Link all but telegraphed it. Perhaps not drastic enough to scare him senseless, but bad enough to shake him. Bad enough to turn someone unstoppable like Howard Link gun-shy and nervous. He shouldn’t have gone out alone.

But neither of them had known that for sure until he’d tried. Maybe he could have handled it. Maybe he still could.

But he didn’t need to. 

As it was, Tyki would rather kick back and think of ways to prove a dragon wrong than fret over possibilities which hadn’t come to light. Link was safe and he’d be fine - sooner or later - and one way or another Tyki would fix him up so he wouldn’t have cause to be scared of buying groceries. 

He just needed an aspirin first, or - a hydrolyte or something, to get his head on straight. 

“I will step out, though,” Tyki amended, carving another bite from his breakfast before standing. “Just for ten minutes or so,” he added, waving away any concern Link might have started to muster. “You needed more fairy tales, right?” he prompted, absently ruffling Link’s fringe as he stepped past, towards the door. “I’ll pick some up.”

“Wait!” Link demanded, rushing to stand, looking somewhat aghast. “You’re not,” he started, seemed to bite his tongue with the heat of his blush, and gestured vaguely to Tyki’s midsection. 

“Oh,” he allowed, glancing down at his bare chest and equally bare feet before waving away Link’s concern. “They don’t mind,” he shrugged and turned the door’s handle to the black latch before lifting it and stepping out with a reassuring smile thrown over his shoulder to Link’s look of distress. 

The Hallway was just as he’d left it - just as he’d fashioned it. An endless stretch of floors polished to the shine of a still lake, holding the rippled mirror of white pillars lining a path to everywhere. Walls built of arched windows offered an illusion of direction, following the line of the pillars into an endless stretch of something neither time nor space and somehow both. High ceilings arching overhead, paved with just as many windows, and the light that filtered through each frame of crystal glass shattered into a whole spectrum of rainbows, every breath of it reflected in the formless floor. 

In all actuality, there was nothing. In all actuality, the emptiness between worlds was just that - emptiness. No direction, no beginning, no end. No path no walls no roof. Tyki simply chose to create a hallway in that place because a hallway was perfect for its purpose; opening doors. 

He’d been to Madrid once, years ago, and the vaulted ceilings of the Crystal Palace had stuck with him. A room built of rainbows. 

It was beautiful - undoubtedly so. 

But where in Spain birds had chattered outside the glass and the Room of Rainbows was filled with the murmur of wordless admiration, there was no world inside the Hallway but that of Tyki’s own making. 

A hallway had no use for existing but to get from one place to another.

Some interminable, illogical, completely unremarkable distance from where he’d entered, Tyki pulled a hand from his pocket, anticipated a doorknob in the empty air, and stepped from the Hallway into his own bedroom, all but untouched for almost ten years. Why lay down to rest in Portugal when he had a whole world waiting just on the other side of what was, to all intents and purposes, the door to his cupboard. 

How Wardrobian of him. 

Of course, Lewis hadn’t gotten a breath of it right with Ingary, but Tyki had poked his nose through enough doors and into enough worlds to know that he’d had every chance of having it right with a theoretical Narnia _.  _ Tyki’s world just happened to be leagues better than Lewis’s as a getaway. 

No endless winter, no evil witches - little enough Christian iconography. And the best part was that he didn’t have to be king of anything but his own walking castle. 

All for the price of a heart.

_ “Road?”  _ Tyki called down the stairs the moment he opened his door, wincing at the sound of his own voice and treading heavily down the steps.

_ “Whaaaaat?”  _ she called back from… somewhere, the mocking cadence of her stupidly high-pitched voice like a needle driven right behind his left eye, christ, just lobotomise him already.

“I need to borrow a book!” he yelled out to her, making his bleary way into the kitchen and pouring himself a glass of water. 

“What book?” she yelled back, and didn’t sound as though she’d moved an inch to go actually find him.

“Can you two please have that conversation in the same room?” Tricia demanded, a motherly frown of reprimand furrowing her pretty brow to place what looked like - and was - a glass of orange juice on the bench before Tyki. Possibly a mimosa. It was hard to tell through his own dourness if she was having a mimosa sort of morning. 

A winning smile couldn’t help but spread across his face at the sight of her, and he said, leaning in to press a kiss of joined greeting and thanks to her cheek, “I’m sorry, dearest, but I just can’t-”

_ “What fucking book?”  _ Road screeched from across the house, rupturing eardrums for miles around in her frustration at being ignored.

_ “Perrault’s!”  _ Tyki barked a ferocious answer before turning back to Tricia and finishing, “stand being in the same room as her.”

She answered with an unamused arch of her brows and an unconvinced hum, and pulled open the draw by her hip to drop a pack of paracetamol and a canister of dissolvable hydrolytes on the bench without bothering to break that look of motherly reprimand. 

Tyki had no control over or will to control the smile he smiled at her. “You are an angel,” he said, making no move to take them from under her guarding hand.

“I know,” she countered, prim and expectant.

Tyki arched a brow. “I love you?” he tried, hopeful.

“Thank you,” she accepted, an elegant little smile playing at the corner of her lips. She still made no move to relinquish the painkillers.

Tyki’s smile sank into one of acknowledged defeat and he caved with a fondly mocking,  _ “Thank you.” _

“You’re welcome,” she smiled, as pretty as the sun, and lifted her hand with small ceremony for Tyki to drop a hydrolyte into the water, pop a couple of tablets into his palm and down the whole thing before it had hardly finished dissolving. “You look awful,” she said the moment he was done.

A pleased smile on his lips, he admitted, “I  _ feel  _ awful. Thanks for asking.”

“I didn’t hear you come in last night,” she said, that pesky mother’s brow of hers arched pointedly.

“I didn’t,” Tyki admitted blandly, lifting the glass of orange juice to his lips and taking a careful sip. Definitely a mimosa morning. Tyki was glad she was having a good day.

“So where’s your shirt?” she prodded, and glanced down to his feet. “And your shoes.”

Tyki opened his mouth, wondering for an answer, before he simply admitted, “Elsewhere,” with a plain smile. 

“I want it back,” Road bit out, dropping a thick-covered book heavily by Tyki’s elbow, already turning on her heel to head back to wherever she’d emerged from.

“You don’t read,” Tyki called a vague reminder after her. Her only answer before she slammed the door to the projector-theatre-movie-room, was a middle finger topped with a pretty, black-painted nail thrown over her shoulder. Tyki rolled his eyes in a mockery of fondness. “Teenagers,” he scoffed, light and sarcastic, “right?”

“Why do you need a book of children’s stories?” Tricia asked.

“I don’t. But, I have a date,” Tyki lied and diverted, not at all an answer, and smiled a bright distraction.

“How quaint,” she allowed, again with that look of knowing everything there was to know under God’s good sun. “I hope the children’s stories have nothing to do with it.”

“In fact,” Tyki announced, hefting the book and his mimosa, “they do. He’s very bookish, you know. But foreign. German, actually.”

Tricia did not look convinced. “You know most fairy tales came from Germany, right?”

“Perrault is French,” Tyki reasoned, flashing the name on the cover like an excuse.

“It’s been translated,” she reasoned pointedly, but made no move to drag him back.

Tyki shrugged vaguely, turned back to the stairs. “Not into German, apparently,” he allowed with a roguish sort of smile, already making his getaway. 

“Was that Tyki?” he winced as he heard Sheryl ask.

“You just missed him,” Tricia defended at his escape, a true pillar of familial morality. 

Before he could pain to get caught up in another round of reprimands - one mimosa wouldn’t last him through half of Sheryl’s lecture - Tyki slipped back into the Hallway with the glass in one hand and the book in the other, and the insubstantial door faded from existence the moment it closed behind him. 

Sipping his champagne and juice, Tyki took his time meandering down the Hallway. Not that it mattered how far he walked - or even if he walked at all. Distance was a funny concept there, and the doorways he opened certainly didn’t rely on it. He could put a landmark at any point along the Hall, and it might be that regardless of how far he walked from it, it would always be within eyesight - and not so far behind him at all. Alternately, he might never again find the moment in the Hallway where he’d conjured it. 

It was, altogether, an odd place, and the fact Tyki had figured out how to manifest things in there held no bearing on what he actually knew of its nature. He’d studied it with varying degrees of intensity for almost two decades, and conclusively he’d found only two certainties. 

Firstly, that it wasn’t inherently dangerous. The whole environment was… uneventful. Whatever it was  _ made  _ of, there was no radiation storms, no dangerous fluctuations of magic as there might similarly have been winds in a place with atmosphere. That was to say he could very healthily live decades there and suffer no ill effects. 

He simply chose not to. 

Secondly, he knew that it was filled with every single possible thing, but at the same time  _ embodied  _ everything. Not simply a universe type of everything - it was far larger than that - but more under the concept of all the nonexistent space that the universe was constantly expanding into.  _ That  _ sort of everything. Boundless and completely, unfeasibly immeasurable. 

And so, as a result, anything was possible and, put simply, there was endless room for those possibilities to exist. He could, theoretically, manifest an entire universe within the Hallway. But he had no interest in becoming a God. 

Just as he’d had no interest in becoming a Portuguese politician, or, as the case may be, a Crown Sorcerer of Ingary. A hallway built in the likeness of the Room of Rainbows in Madrid’s Crystal Palace did him just fine, thank you. 

It was, in fact, a wonderful place to enjoy a mimosa.

The longer Tyki walked, the better he felt - and the better he felt, the clearer he thought, and the clearer he thought the more aware he became of the fact that Link was, from what he could tell, in a rather delicate state and would probably be anxious until the moment Tyki opened the door. 

He breathed a sigh and let his feet come to a stop. Tilting his head back, he looked up at the arched ceiling of crystal-paned windows and the endless rainbows they cast. Responsibility. He’d been well on his way to leaving the whole concept behind and then, out of nowhere, Howard Link had chosen to worm his way into Tyki’s castle and into his life and into his fire’s easy favour, and Tyki didn’t even have the grace to be peeved.

Well, he certainly  _ had  _ been peeved. Back when all it was about was a half-remembered nothing of a memory of a dream. But Link was a company he’d missed, or something like that. Appreciated, at the very least. When had he ever thought that he might  _ enjoy  _ someone living in his house and cooking him breakfast every morning? That was some marriage-type fantasy he’d never  _ wanted  _ to indulge, and Tyki hadn’t even had to go through the mess of getting married over it. 

Link was a pain, and painfully stubborn, and his comfort zone was stubbornly, painfully small, but whatever trouble he’d gone through in the name of finding something for them to eat had little enough to do with a small, painful comfort zone and more to do with stubbornness - particularly, a stubbornness to be helpful. Useful. He had this absurd idea that if he wanted to be worth something he had to work himself to the bone over it and Tyki didn’t  _ get  _ it but he wasn’t about to let Link get himself killed over it. 

Link was Tyki’s  _ responsibility.  _ He’d decided that when he’d decided to take on his curse. As fair as it was for Link to test his mettle out in the wide world with a handicap a shark would smell a mile away, he shouldn’t have had to do it out of necessity.

And there Tyki was, strolling through a hallway of light, sipping a mimosa. 

Because he was a damned fool, and something of a coward, and avoiding his mistakes seemed to make his shortcomings easier to bear. He wasn’t quite sure yet on whether that was because he intended to let that same mistake keep slipping through his fingers, or if he intended to do something about his  _ responsibility.  _

Even as he lifted a hand to manifest a door before him, he wasn’t clear on his intentions.

Link just missed the mark of leaping out of his chair in unbridled excitement at Tyki’s arrival - and even then, only through his own prudence and obligation to propriety. 

Firstly, upon hearing the door open, Tyki saw his head snap around. Then, the impulsive little jolt of his on-edge nerves all but hailing Tyki’s return, that instinct to jump up and run to him. Lastly, a moment of clarity which had him carefully closing the book in his lap, placing it on the stout table by the hearth, and standing with a particular poise from Tyki’s armchair. 

“Got it,” Tyki announced, holding up Perrault’s and pushing the door closed behind him.

Striking an air of stern skepticism, Link asked, “Did you really go out for half an hour just to get a book?”

Tyki paused, looked down at himself. Shirtless, shoeless, mimosa in hand. “Sure,” he haphazardly agreed, and stepped up to Link to push said book into his hands.

“What’s that?” he demanded of the drink in Tyki’s hand.

“That,” Tyki started and then paused, not sure if Ingary had developed a drink for the wealthy and bored upper-middle-class beyond tea, before explaining simply, “is curing my hangover.”

Link’s fingers caught Tyki’s wrist, held him steady as he dipped his head to briskly sniff at the lip of the glass. Scathing, he stood with a nose wrinkled in delicate disgust and disdain and hazarded, “By getting drunk?”

Tyki gave a long hum as he moved back over to the table and to his abandoned breakfast, as though he were truly giving the answer an honest thought before saying, “Something-something about hangovers only lasting until the hair of the dog.” Picking up his knife and fork and carving into his tepid breakfast with all the grace he could muster, he promised, “I feel as good as new.”

“Like magic,” Link muttered, painfully dry, and settled himself back into Tyki’s chair. As thrilled as Link was to have something to be sour over, his old anxiety seemed far from sight. Or perhaps scathing skepticism was simply how he phrased relief. 

Either way, his cooking was just as good cold as it was hot.

 

* * *

 

Their day was spent very simply with Tyki lying across the red chaise lounge with an arm draped over his eyes, half-dozing to the cadence of Link’s voice as he read Charles Perrault’s Fairy Tales to Allen.  _ Puss in Boots  _ and  _ Red Riding Hood, The Fairies  _ and  _ Little Thumb.  _

He had a good voice for it, Tyki thought. Low and measured, a simple emphasis to the way he read the stories as though he were reciting lines of poetry. Not a word out of place and not a stumble in sight until he reached the title of  _ Le Barbe Bleue.  _

“What’s that?” he asked when he reached it, words clumsily formed in his mouth. Ingary, of course, spoke a language almost identical to English, and Tyki wasn’t certain there was a parallel of France to be found. Either way, the closest thing Tyki could pin to Link’s quintessentially rural accent was something of provincial German, though that had little bearing on the existence of a Germanic language so much as it simply seemed to be the way the populations outside of the major cities spoke. 

“Blue Beard,” he translated, voice a lazy drawl. 

“Where  _ do  _ you get these books from?” Link asked, and Tyki could perfectly picture the complex furrow of his brow without even having to raise his arm and look. 

He answered with a vague shrug. 

Link seemed to have figured out somewhere along the line that if Tyki wasn’t particularly inclined to answer a question he’d have little enough luck trying to drag one out of him, and let it slide with a vague sigh. 

“Okay,” he allowed, too accustomed to even be irate in his defeat, and proposed,  _ “Blue Beard.” _

Proceeding to read, Tyki pulled in a deep, quiet breath and let the half-forgotten story filter in through Link’s gentle, stern voice - there truly was a current of certainty in the way he read which made listening to those old stories all the more compelling.

“There once was a man who had fine houses,” Link read, the gentle cadence of it enrapturing, “both in town and country, a deal of silver and gold plate, embroidered furniture, and coaches gilded all over with gold. But this man,” he continued, “was so unlucky as to have a blue beard, which made him so frightfully ugly that all the women and girls ran away from him.”

“That’s not so strange, is it?” Allen asked from the hearth, as deeply invested as always in Link’s stories. “I can have a blue beard too,” he reasoned, and Tyki lifted his arm and craned his neck just enough to see his fire sprout flickering blue flames from his cheeks and chin, curling into a beard all the way to his waist.

_ “Frightfully _ ugly,” he supplied, to Allen’s pout and a pink little tongue of flame poking out at him from the flickering bush of his moustache.

“Hideous,” Link agreed in that unreadably bland way of his. 

Allen harrumphed and let his face morph back into its usual shape as Link continued his story.

When Link summarised their introduction to the characters with a quaint little, “In short, everything succeeded so well that the youngest daughter began to think that the man's beard was not so very blue after all, and that he was a mighty civil gentleman,” Tyki found there was a pleasant smile sitting small and unobtrusive on his lips. 

Quietly, he let it fall away. As sweet as Link read that particular story, Tyki knew how it ended. As sweet at Ariane was, and as kindly as Blue Beard treated her, it wouldn’t be a fairy tale unless someone suffered horribly for misconduct. 

“She threw herself at her husband's feet,” Link read towards the end, voice a subdued murmur of an onlooker’s regret, “and begged his pardon with all the signs of a true repentance, vowing that she would never more be disobedient.” 

Here he hesitated a moment - nothing more than half a beat to swallow and firm his words. The only fault Tyki had found in the unshakable measure of his voice. 

“She would have melted a rock,” Link said, and Tyki lifted his arm to glance at him - eyes stern with determination on the page, the set of his lips as he spoke a complex war between the certainty of the words he was reading and the certainty with which he’d already guessed how it ended, “so beautiful and sorrowful was she; but Blue Beard had a heart harder than any rock.”

“Or no heart at all,” Allen muttered, vexed and already grieving, and Tyki let his arm fall back to cover his eyes, a silent sigh breathed past his lips.

When Link finished the tale Allen whooped and cheered, exalted at Blue Beard’s comeuppance and Ariane’s survival. Link was silent and, when Tyki lifted his arm again to peer at him, held a strong mask of unconcern over the troubled look in his eyes as he looked down at the page he held open.

Pushing himself to sit up, and then to stand, Tyki stepped over to look by Link’s shoulder and reached down to pull the book from his unresisting hands. Quietly, he entreated, “I think that should be enough for one day.” Link nodded without word, unresisting, but Allen harrumphed all sorts of fuss until Tyki reasoned, “You don’t want to run out of stories so quickly, do you?” and he quietened in unwilling acquiescence. 

A quick glance to the page Link had found himself locked on showed a troubling illustration of the man’s six murdered wives, each strung up in the closet with her throat cut, a tub beneath her feet to catch her blood, and sweet Ariane on her knees in horror before them. 

Gentle, he closed the book and placed it down on the stout table at Link’s side, brushed past with something of a reassuring touch to the top of Link’s gold head, and asked, “Allen, are you feeling up to coffee?”

His fire hummed and hawed and huffed and pouted but ultimately acquiesced, and as Tyki brewed the pot Link didn’t say much at all.

He didn’t say much for the rest of the day, in fact, wandering around with something of a troubled look on his face, and Tyki truly couldn’t blame him. He felt much the same way, himself. 

_ Ariane et Barbe Bleue.  _ An awful story. One that got under the skin and prickled at conscience. It didn’t leave his mind even as Tyki sat himself at his workbench and started the laborious work of decrypting a dragon’s riddle. 

As foolish as it might be to try, Tyki found he simply refused to take rebuttal at face value. No matter what the Bookman had said, he couldn’t put off helping Link. He  _ couldn’t.  _ Not when he didn’t know what wouldn’t work. 

Link already knew Tyki was heartless, but had barely scratched the surface of what that entailed. Tyki would rather he never have to find out.

 

* * *

 

It turned out to be, naturally, extraordinarily difficult. The fact it was a veiled challenge thrown by a  _ knowledge  _ dragon, of all things, might have given it away. The key was figuring out if the dragon considered him smart, or stupid. 

Now, a stupid man would believe himself smart, and believe the dragon to know it too, and thus believe that the one pesky phrase -  _ you won’t find it in the place you're looking -  _ would be a misdirection for a stupid man to completely divert his search with a solution right under his nose. 

Tyki, while holding a high esteem of himself, did not believe a dragon of knowledge would consider him smart. For all intents and purposes considering himself  _ stupid,  _ Tyki hazarded the dragon might have been telling the truth, expecting him - a stupid man - to falsely think himself smart and try to outwit it by doing the exact opposite of what it said. 

But the dragon wasn't dumb, and knew at the very least that Tyki  _ also _ knew it wasn't dumb. And so, knowing that Tyki would be smart enough to consider himself the dumber party in this convoluted riddle type thing, may very well have placed the truth right in front him, believing that he would consider himself stupid enough that the dragon would try to hamfistedly misdirect him.

And so on and so forth until the whole thing became such a convoluted mess of contesting thoughts that there was no true way to discover whether Tyki was a clever man, or a dumb one.

The problem with taking it less as a riddle and more as a plain statement, though, was that if the cure to Link’s curse wasn't where Tyki expected to find it, he had no idea where to start looking for it. 

He was stumped on that for days. 

Wherever he might think to look would be a place the dragon would have known he would look, until it became a self-fulfilling prophecy in that Tyki would be so tied up in looking for places to look that he wouldn’t ever get around to  _ looking.  _

No road was truly a dead end until he found himself with nowhere to go but back to where he’d started. 

But if the dragon wanted him to look to his  _ dreams  _ for an answer, it had missed that train nigh twenty years. 

What a conundrum. What a painfully vexing stump he’d found himself at. And all thanks to asking a dragon’s help. 

Of course, in asking, he’d expected more of a straightforward answer.  _ Bathe him in goat’s blood,  _ or something like that. But, no. Link’s curse wasn’t simple and definitely wasn’t wiccan, and he knew that, and the dragon had known it, and now he was faced with the inarguable truth of it. 

Were he given to morbid thoughts - and in the tired vexation of not knowing what to do, found he was, in fact, given to those thoughts - he would figure this was the exact thing he’d been working to avoid. Running from his own world to hide in another, building a castle whose purpose was to carry him away from responsibility. Who was it, really, that he was trying to keep out?

Someone worth saving, apparently. 

Terrified of discovering he didn’t have the means to save  _ anyone. _

Faced with the choice of letting that become his truth, Tyki instead chose - out of pride, perhaps, or impatience - to simply throw himself into finding a cure, rather than dally around in his thoughts and wonder if such a thing was even possible. As much as inaction had him gritting his teeth with frustration, failure stung that much worse. 

He refused to let stagnant failure be his truth. 

And so, with no bets on it being worth anything, Tyki found himself drawn to  _ time.  _ Time wasted, time lost, immutable moments which might irreversibly alter someone's life. 

For instance, the moment Link had been put under a curse of obedience. 

“When exactly was it,” he called out to ask Link as he was placing two full plates of dinner at the table, seats set adjacent to the corner they usually sat at together, despite that Tyki, over the past week of his fixation, had had little time for appetite, “that you were cursed?”

Link stood straight, and took a moment to consider that. “Five days before I came here,” he said readily, and a furrow of concentration creased his brow. “How long has that been, then?” he asked, running abstractions of time through his mind. 

“Three weeks?” Tyki hazarded. 

“Over a month,” Link corrected with a reprimanding sort of look. 

“Over a month,” Tyki repeated, and blinked abject surprise. 

“Definitely,” Link confirmed emphatically. “I’d say five, maybe six weeks.”

“Almost two,” Tyki summed, surprise building. 

“Something like that,” Link said with a swift nod. 

Tyki hummed appreciative consideration, and glanced down at the notes he’d been scrawling across the spread pages of his book. “I have,” he started, and then stopped for a moment. The implications were… Well, they were what they were. Slowly, he said, “I have an idea,” and tapped the end of his pen against the page, “but you’ll have to decide for yourself if you like it.”

“So long as I don’t end up a dog,” Link said, dry with weary wit, “or a rabbit, or mouse, or some piece of the furniture, I'm sure I'll like it just fine.”

“You assume the worst of me,” Tyki rebuked with an answering sort of smile. 

“It’s all I've seen of you,” Link reasoned, his wry humour enough to make Tyki laugh. 

“Alright,” he allowed, leaning back in his seat and twisting to face Link properly, fingers clasped loosely in his lap, “here it is. With a bit of fiddling,” he said, and then corrected himself. “With a lot of fiddling,” he amended, more truthfully, “it would be possible for me to…” He trailed off, gestured vaguely. “Rewind you.”

“Rewind me,” Link repeated, blinking at him.

“Say, two months,” Tyki said, “to a week before your curse.”

Eyes widening comically, Link emphasised, “Rewind  _ time?” _

“Not time,” Tyki rushed to explain. “Just you. Time,” he said, and let his lips twist unhappily, “is entirely more fiddly.”

With as much care as his confusion warranted, Link pulled his chair from the table and sat himself down. “You would rewind me,” he said, slow with a new concept grasped, “to how I was exactly two months ago. But I’d still be  _ here,”  _ he stressed, fingertips brushing against his fork as though to emphasise  _ here, the castle, now, eating dinner.  _

“Here,” Tyki agreed, and pulled his lips into a smile. “As far as you’d know,” he explained, “you’d blink and two months ago would be yesterday, and you’d have no clue how you got here. Another way of putting it,” he added, “might be that we’re plucking the you from two months ago out of his own time, and putting him right where you are. Of course,” he added, waving off any paradoxical complexities that might arise, “we’re not taking anyone from anywhere. Just binning the past two months of your life.”

“And,” Link continued, slow and careful with his words, “everything that came with them.”

Tyki hefted that smile back up onto his face and nodded. “Everything.”

“No curse,” Link said, and Tyki nodded again. “No…” Link started, and bit off the word, fixed it with,  _ “fear.”  _ Tyki nodded again, and tried very hard to smile as though he truly meant it. “No running,” Link said, voice quiet, eyes on his steaming plate.

Tyki leaned forwards, planted his elbows on his knees, hands clasped before him. “As far as you’d be concerned,” he said, voice low and gentle, “there would be nothing to run from.”

Quiet, fingers curled around his cutlery in conflicted reluctance, he added, “Nor anything to run to.” He seemed to swallow something down, and the longer he thought the deeper his frown creased. Silent agitation. “I wouldn't remember you, would I,” he said, because it wasn't a question.

“Separating the mind from the body would be one thing,” Tyki said, “were you to worry about being two months younger. But separating the mind from its memories,” he emphasised, “is a whole other thing entirely. Memories are what holds our minds together.”

Eyes pinned on his dinner, blind and something like distressed, he muttered, “A simple ‘yes’ would suffice.”

Subdued, Tyki reminded, “It's your decision, Howard. There's no promise to it even working. Say the word and I'll find some other way,” he said, “but loopholes and cures to something like this are painfully finite.”

“I need to think about it,” he said, voice a quiet murmur, fork twisted uncertainly in his hand. 

“Take your time,” he said, and cracked a wry grin as he pushed himself to stand. “Another day or two won’t mean a thing.”

“Where are you going?” Link demanded as he made for the door.

“Just for a walk,” Tyki answered, slinging his coat over his shoulder and turning the handle to open onto the moors. “I won't go far,” he promised, and left the door to sit open as he dug his cigarettes from his pocket. “Call me if you need anything,” he allowed, a firm smile on his lips when he glanced reassurance over his shoulder to Link’s stymied offence.

“Tyki,” he demanded, pushing himself to stand with his hands planted on the table, an expression on his face that read something like hurt. “I want to have _dinner_ with you,” he stressed.

He paused for a long beat, looking back at Link and the warmth of the castle, the stifling tension of the well-intentioned guillotine he’d arranged over his own head. Pleasant smiles and  _ this is delicious  _ and  _ thank you  _ and subdued currents of too many unspoken words. He’d forgotten to keep smiling. Quiet, a breath ghosted past his lips like a sigh. “Why don’t you come for a walk, instead?” he proposed. 

Doubtful, Link lifted his chin a degree as though to glance out beyond Tyki to the moors. “At night?” he prodded.

The small smile which fell onto Tyki’s lips was hardly as intentional and hardly as forced as the last. “Don’t you want to know why they call it Star Lake?” he proposed. 

Link hesitated for a moment, torn. He glanced at Allen, and then down at his plate, and brushed his fingers across his creased brow. “Okay,” he allowed as though he wasn’t entirely convinced. “Okay,” he sighed, and moved to follow Tyki down the steps, out into the starlit moors.

It was dark, and the chill of the night’s cloudforms had already set in, vapour draped like cobwebs over the mountainside. The damp caught in Tyki’s lashes and in Link’s hair, spun silver jewels of condensation caught in the warm light creeping from their castle. Without a thought, Tyki caught Link’s hand in his and led him through the fog down to the pebble-strewn banks of the lake. 

“We came here before,” Link murmured, reluctant, voice caught and muffled in the clouds. “When I first arrived. This was the first place Allen stopped.”

“We’ve circled the Folding Valley,” Tyki explained, and drew a line out and around where they were standing, “all the way up and around Madame Epstain’s estate, and back down to the mouth of the valley.”

“Madame Epstain,” Link mused, fingers fluttering light and quiet in Tyki’s hold. “My brother went to study with her.”

“Your brother?” Tyki repeated on surprise, abruptly taken aback. At any mention of his family Link had seemed to close the conversation on a rather crisp, reprimanding note. Tyki had assumed…

Well, he didn’t know what he’d assumed. 

Link, though, in that moment, seemed to catch himself with a blush, cheeks stained dark in the night. “Well,” he amended, words tense and awkward, “not my  _ brother.  _ Someone I grew up with. In the same… house, so. It was easy to consider him such.”

“If he’s training with Madame Epstain,” Tyki hazarded, “why didn’t you go to him for help?”

Link’s nose wrinkled, and his hand tightened in Tyki’s. “We’re not on good terms,” he said simply. 

“Any terms are better than a monstrous wizard who eats hearts,” Tyki reasoned.

Link shook his head, staunch. “Not always.” Crisp, reprimanding. A close to the conversation.

It raised more than a few questions, to be sure, but beyond that Tyki figured it would be a bad idea to dig under Link’s skin for more hints to his past, he simply didn’t think the effort of doing so would pay off. Regardless, right then, standing on the banks of a cloud-shrouded Star Lake with Link’s hand in his and a regretful decision to be made, was not the time. 

In glancing at him, a veiled look of reluctant regret shrouded by the darkness around them, Tyki saw one settle on Link’s shoulder.

Voice pitched low and quiet and certain with command, Tyki murmured, “Don’t move.”

Immediately, Link’s body seemed to tense, hand still as stone in Tyki’s. 

Slowly, slowly, careful not to alarm it, squeezing Link’s hand in quiet reassurance, Tyki lifted a finger to brush at Link’s shoulder and urge the tiny golden light to rest on his knuckles. Its glow trembled and swelled like the gentle surge of an ocean wave, receding and filling out. Not unlike the tentative way a butterfly would beat its wings after discovering a hand was not a flower to drink from.

“I didn’t mean that,” Tyki murmured, an apologetic glance to Link’s forcibly motionless face. “You can stop.”

A breath of relief shuddered with careful restraint from Link’s nose, and he turned his head degree by degree to see the small creature that Tyki had coaxed onto his hand. Quiet, words hard with captured nerves, he asked, “What is it?”

Without a sound, the creature startled at something unseen and lifted off Tyki’s hand, its warbling light fading quickly into the thick fog of the clouds. Tyki didn’t say a word when he waved his hand to clear the air before them, the vapour parting over the lake’s waters to show hundreds of them - thousands  _ \-  _ drifting in meandering swells of glimmering light out across the unrippled surface. 

“Are they stars?” Link asked, watching their slow, hypnotic dance with something like awed wonder, each light reflected in the perfect stillness of the water.

“Not quite,” Tyki said, letting go of Link’s hand to draw him closer against his side with an arm around his shoulders to shroud him in the warmth of his coat. The silly boy had forgotten to bring his, and the damp of the cloud was beginning to bite. “They’re wisps,” he answered, eyes out on the swaying constellations they framed. “The real thing is much more thrilling.”

“I don’t think they’re meant to be thrilling,” Link reasoned, somewhat enraptured. 

“They’re enthralling,” Tyki agreed, a small smile plucking at the corners of his lips. “If you try to follow them through the mist, you’ll drown in the lake.”

“That’s awful,” Link remarked, but still couldn’t seem to drag his eyes away. 

“They’re bright and pretty,” Tyki said simply. “The light is intended to lure moths. It’s not their fault people follow, too.”

Wry, Link allowed, “People do love bright and pretty.”

“They can’t help themselves,” Tyki agreed, quietly subdued, thumb tracing slow circles against Link’s shoulder. 

Without a sound but for a quiet breath of content, Link seemed to lean in against Tyki’s side, head resting lightly on his shoulder. The wisps danced across the lake, slow and timelessly melodic, to a tune they couldn’t hear on the subtle winds that brushed by. In silence they stood together, on the edge of Star Lake, and tried not to think that it might not be a lasting memory. 

Quietly, at length, Link murmured into the soft glow of the wisps, “It feels incredibly greedy, to even ask for time to think it over.”

Some sort of hollowness forming in his stomach, Tyki already knew what he meant. It didn’t stop him from asking, subdued with restrained regret, “Why’s that?”

“Because,” Link said, voice painted with upset, “I already know what my answer will be.” He turned his head a slight degree, cheek almost pressed to Tyki’s chest, and he felt tentative fingers curl in the back of his shirt. “Still, I can’t help but selfishly ask for more hours,” he continued, “or more days. Even if I’m going to forget them,” he allowed, voice empty with the deep desperation of regret, “I still want to live them. At least once.”

Gentle, Tyki brought a hand up to brush a wisp from Link’s hair, and let his touch settle light on the back of Link’s head. It took only the slightest shift of weight for him to turn their quiet touches into something of an embrace.

“I don’t want to go,” Link said, head resting on Tyki’s shoulder, words tumbling beneath his chin. “Not really. But,” he said, and his body shook with the jagged scoff of his laugh, “I can’t even go to the market by myself. I haven’t slept right since the start of it all,” he admitted, voice curled with some bitter emotion. With fear. Tyki’s stomach was churned up in all kinds of disquiet at Link’s distress. “I keep dreaming he’ll find me,” he breathed his terrors against Tyki’s collarbones, releasing nightmares he’d been clinging to for months. “That he’ll follow the scent of my cooking like a hound, or crawl out of the floorboards like a spider. I don’t  _ want  _ to leave,” he repeated, fingers curled into the back of Tyki’s shirt. “But I came to you for a cure.”

Arms wound around Link’s shoulders, Tyki closed his eyes on a quiet breath and let his cheek rest on the crown of Link’s head. Slow, careful, he murmured, “Some ultimatums are worse than others. But the point is that they’re never easy.”

Link nodded against him, a tiny up-down of movement. 

“We’ll do a trial run first,” Tyki reasoned, voice low and reassuring, “once I figure out the spell. See if it works, and you’ll be back with us in an hour.”

“And then,” Link said with a quiet little laugh, “after that, I’ll be gone for good.”

“It’s for the best,” Tyki reminded them both, and neither could find a good enough reason to pull away from the other until the clouds crept back in beyond the frayed ends of Tyki’s concentration and their clothes were growing cold and damp with the heavy mist. 

Even then, they were reluctant to leave.

 

* * *

 

They didn’t talk about it, once Link had shared his decision. Tyki read up on texts regarding the nature of time, and instances of displacement. Familiarised himself with the way the ancient Time Lords wove the fabric of existence from wefts of infinity and wefts of time - the same fabric, he supposed, which made up the Hallway. He would have to draw from the infinity of that place in order to manufacture his spell, because on all accounts he could find, very little of that fabric existed elsewhere. 

In some surreal ways, nothing changed at all. 

Link would still rouse him for breakfast, whether he’d managed to drag himself to bed, fallen asleep at his workbench, or studied through the night. They’d still work around each other of a morning, and in the evening Link would still settle down in Tyki’s chair with a book of Fairy Tales and read to Allen while Tyki kept at composing his spell. 

It was still lovely to hear him read, if somewhat coloured with a tone of regret. 

Despite how Allen loved Link and the hours they spent together, and despite how Tyki loved seeing Allen smile like that, and laugh, it had all taken on a bittersweet flavour. In the moments - those late moments, beyond the chime of any clock, when Allen had settled down into embers and Link was asleep in Tyki’s chair, he would rest from his work and spend a moment, or two, or ten, simply living in the silence of their momentary permanence. 

Momentary. 

Tyki tried to imagine how his life might look without Link, and found he wasn’t certain he could picture it. His moving castle would move on - he’d leave Market Chipping behind. Inevitably, it would fall back to the state it had been before Link had torn through and made sense of Tyki’s chaos. He’d periodically forget to scrape Allen’s hearth until it reached a point where it didn’t matter anymore, and his coat rack and bookcase would be hung with bits and bobs from one-night strangers he’d invite in from Porthaven or Kingsbury who would leave in the morning and forget a hat or an umbrella or, unfortunately, a princely set of keys. 

How drab. 

It was usually when his thoughts turned that kind of morose that Tyki would push himself to his feet and move to Link’s shoulder. He’d often fall asleep in Tyki’s chair with his head dropped down to his chest, chin tucked in, the book still open on his lap. He looked sweet, fresh asleep, not deep enough for any dreams to crease his young brow. 

Tyki would brush a hand through Link’s fringe so he would half-wake with a sleepy murmur, pick him up with some effort and carry him off to bed. In Tyki’s arms, he would tuck his head beneath Tyki’s chin so his sleeping breaths would flow across his collar, and Tyki would place him in bed with a touch lingering on his brow imbued with good intentions and sweet dreams. 

Whether those small spells worked at all, Tyki didn’t stay to find out. He closed Link’s door behind him, went back downstairs, and continued to work. 

The hardest part was distilling the fabric of existence into a malleable quantity. It was, after all, infinity itself. Trying to take a small piece of it meant he often ended up with more than he needed - because even a small piece had the same properties as the rest of it. That was, though, the point after all. And it was with that - a small bottle of nothing containing absolutely everything - that Tyki’s spell was complete. 

“What is that?” Link asked when Tyki placed the vial on the table between them as they sat down for breakfast the next morning. 

Tyki opened his mouth. “Good question,” he said. Link looked at him as though he were waiting for Tyki to explain something he had only the barest comprehension of. “It’s,” he started slowly, and gestured at the nothing as though prompting it to explain itself. “Everything,” he said simply. 

Link did not look impressed.

“This tiny bottle,” he said, lifting it up to peer at the contents, “is  _ everything.”  _

“Yes,” Tyki confirmed.

“Then why aren’t we in it,” Link countered.

Tyki blinked. “Another good question.”

Link arched his brows.

Pulling in a deep, complicated breath, Tyki reasoned, “It’s not everything that exists right now, but it is pure potential. It contains the capacity to be anything that has, can, or will exist, and it’s endless.”

“I’d say it’s about fifty mil,” Link countered blandly, and placed it back on the table. 

“This,” Tyki countered, picking it back up, “is what universes are made of. And I’m going to use it with the comparatively juvenile intention of putting you back to normal.”

Link did not look amused. “Here I thought we’d moved past calling me quaint.”

Tyki all but rolled his eyes. “I’m not saying  _ this  _ is juvenile. I’m simply saying that compared to the creation of a whole other universe, anything would be. That’s just how quantities work.”

Already lost on the importance of what Tyki had accomplished, Link was cutting into his stacked pancakes as he asked, “So where did you get it?”

“Around,” Tyki answered with a vague wave of his hand, “but it was a lot more difficult to do than any explanation would make it seem.”

“Most things are,” Link agreed simply. “What are you going to do with the rest it?”

Tyki gave him a look. “This stuff gave birth to time and space and the whole theory of conservation of mass. What do you _think_ I’m going to do?” he asked, intending it to be a rhetorical statement. Thinking about it, though, the answer wasn’t obvious at all. He really could do anything with it. “I’m going to put it back,” he clarified.

Link dabbed at his lips with a napkin. “Conservation of what?” he asked, blinking innocently. 

“Congratulations, Tyki,” he mocked, picking up his knife and fork, “you just made the greatest breakthrough in magic and science since gravity, quantum physics, and interdimensional travel. I’m so glad I have someone as clever as you working so hard to solve all my problems.”

Link sighed and went back to his breakfast. “I have no intention of understanding,” he stated.

“Clearly,” Tyki agreed, dry as dirt. “What’s important,” he said, “is that I figured out how to make it temporary, so if I get the rest of it wrong and you turn into a collapse of the space-time continuum, everything will still go back to normal in an hour or so.”

“Thank god for that,” Link commented.

“The problem,” Tyki continued, “is that I haven’t figured out how to make it permanent. So if it  _ does  _ work, that’ll take a while to fix.”

“As good a starting place as any,” Link allowed and continued eating, for all intents and purposes unconcerned. “When should we do it?”

“After breakfast,” Tyki allowed with a shrug. “I find it’s best to mess with magic on a full stomach.” He paused over his pancakes for a moment, eyeing Link shrewdly. “You seem remarkably unconcerned about this.”

Link glanced up to arch a brow at him as he daintily bit off a small mouthful from his fork, chewed, and swallowed it down. “Should I not be?” he asked at length. 

“Whether you should or shouldn’t,” Tyki reasoned, “you’re definitely the sort of person who  _ would  _ be.”

Link seemed to consider that for a moment before nodding firmly. “You’re right,” he agreed, “I would be. But I figure there’s no point in getting wound up. I asked for this,” he said, going back to his pancakes, eyes on his plate. “So it’s best not to complain.”

Tyki gave an unconvinced, rather dissatisfied sort of hum, but ultimately followed Link’s lead and dug in to his breakfast right and proper. 

“So,” he proposed as Link was washing up their dishes, leaning back against the kitchen bench and fiddling with the bottled Everything. He was going to have to come up with a better name for it. “Are you ready for a Deus Ex Machina?”

“A  _ what?”  _ Link demanded, shooking him a glare of irate confusion. Tyki held up the bottle as answer. Link breathed a forceful sigh and rubbed at his brow with the back of his wrist before dunking his hands back into the soapy water. “Give me a minute,” he muttered, back to scrubbing their dishes. 

A minute later, he was drying them and bustling around Tyki to put them away. A few minutes later and he was wiping the table down and clearing up Tyki’s workplace. And after that he was sweeping the floors and ushering Allen out of the ashes so he could clean the fireplace. 

“Link,” Tyki commanded once he’d thrown the dust out onto the moors, and caught him by the shoulders to hold him in place before he bounced off to find something else that would just take another minute, and another minute, and another minute. “Should we take a seat,” he all but demanded, eyes unwavering from Link’s uneasy face. 

He made as though to brush past, to shrug Tyki off with a distracted, “Not right now; I just need to-”

Holding him still, Tyki said, “I want you to stop what you’re doing and come sit down with me.”

An argument sat on the tip of Link’s tongue for a long moment before all the hard-wired tension breathed out of him in a sigh. “Okay,” he agreed on a murmur, head dipped, eyes averted. 

“Here,” Tyki encouraged, his hands slipping down Link’s shoulders to grasp both of his, lead him over to the lounge and sat him down in his own seat. “I told you,” he reminded, voice subdued with honesty as he sat himself down, “you don’t have to go through with it.”

“Of course I do,” Link countered, mumbled, eyes on his hands twisting tight in his lap. “I just want to make sure that,” he gestured, short and abrupt and brisk, “everything is fine, before I… go.”

Tyki’s lips twisted in a wry smile and he reached out to take one of Link’s fidgeting hands and place the Deus Ex Machina in his palm. “You’re not going anywhere just yet,” he reminded, fond reassurance. “Whatever happens, you’ll be back in an hour.”

Link’s teeth worried at the inside of his lip and he looked down at the spell, fingers curled unwillingly around it.

“Alright?” Tyki prompted.

After a short moment, Link nodded sharp and quick. “Alright,” he agreed, taking it in both his hands and carefully unscrewing the lid. 

“You’ll have to drink it,” Tyki explained. “Quick, like a tonic. Just one mouthful.”

“Not the whole thing?” Link hazarded, sniffing skeptically at the mouth of the bottle. 

Tyki’s smile creased his eyes and he reminded, “There’s no such thing as the whole thing, remember? If you tried to swallow every possibility in the universe, you’d be drinking until you died of old age.”

Link huffed a breath, tilted his head as though to acknowledge the sense of that, and lifted the vial to his lips to gulp down a single mouthful.

All in a moment - and all within the space of a moment - a very strange sensation overcame Tyki. As though he couldn’t quite focus his mind or his eyes, and his memories were being all scrambled up with a stick like oil in paint. He scrunched his eyes closed against the sensation and rubbed his fingers against his bumbling brow. 

Very quickly, things rearranged into a sense of order and he blinked his eyes open. Reality had taken a moment to reassert itself around the way they were trying to alter it, it seemed.

Allen seemed to have been overcome with a similar state of momentary confusion, and asked, “Did something just happen?”

“I’m not sure,” Tyki admitted, and looked over at Link sitting in the opposite chair, peering inquisitively at the Deus Ex Machina in his hand. Whatever had changed, it  _ was  _ their reality now. Difficult to pinpoint what, exactly, was different.

Still somewhat lost, Tyki reached across to take open bottle from Link’s small, untrustworthy hand and screwed the cap back on before he could manage to spill a universe on Tyki’s upholstery. 

Eyes on Link, he leaned back in his seat with a vexed sigh, grasping for what that swirling might have dislodged. “I can’t really remember what I was doing,” he admitted, his confused frown directed at Link.

Link gave him a wide, happy, close-lipped smile - one that stretched right across his round little face. Tyki’s eyes narrowed. That didn’t seem right. And nor did the clothes he was wearing, come to think of it. Tyki was sure they’d fit him a moment ago, but they’d very… much… grown.

“How old are you?” he asked Link, not sure exactly what it was that wasn’t falling into place.

“Six and a half,” Link answered, his heels kicking absently against the chair where they couldn’t quite reach the ground. “My birthday’s just after Christmas,” he said, imparting information with a look as though it was a matter of national security. “How old are  _ you?”  _ he countered.

Glancing slowly around the room, Tyki distractedly answered, “Thirty-two,” as he tried to piece everything together. Link cooked for him and cleaned for him and slept in the spare room and he was under a curse of obedience and it seemed very odd, come to think of it, that Tyki had let a six-year-old come to live with him - let alone that he would be extorting that six-year-old for unpaid labour. 

Not to mention how his clothes had, for some reason, grown inexplicably larger. The Deus Ex hadn’t even  _ touched  _ his clothes. Still lost, he admitted, “I think something’s gone wrong,” and snatched the bottle back up from the table to peer at it closely, as though that would tell him anything. “What were we doing?” he demanded of Allen, the feeling of misplaced wrongness setting in deeper.

Long, slow, unsure, Allen dragged out, “Fixing… Link’s… curse.”

Digging his fingers against his brow, Tyki asked, “Did it work?”

Allen gave a lost sort of shrug and reasoned, “You’re the expert.”

Tyki sighed and looked back at Link, who was watching the whole exchange with a serious expression of modest patience on his young face. “You’re a bit of an odd kid, aren’t you,” he observed skeptically. Link answered with a small tilt of his head. “First things first,” Tyki announced, pushing himself to stand. “You should probably change into some clothes that fit.”

“Okay,” Link agreed simply, and painstakingly took to hoisting his too-large sleeves up to his elbows so he could tug the legs of his pants high enough that he wouldn’t be tripping over them before pushing himself off the couch and waddling for the stairs.

Tyki blinked after him and shook his head slightly. “I haven’t the faintest idea what’s going on,” he murmured, absolutely befuddled by the whole thing. 

“You and I, both,” Allen agreed, emphatic. 

Tyki decided he ought to pour himself a glass of whiskey, morning be damned. No morning had any right to feel so odd, and if it chose to be so regardless then it had no right to complain about a splash of liquor to help it go down. 

“They were all big,” Link announced, coming downstairs in his pyjama top - which was, as he’d said, far too large. 

Well, Link was in his pyjamas and Tyki was already drinking, but at least if the circumstances weren’t getting any more normal, the feeling of absolute oddness was relaxing into something more regular. Might have just been a side-effect of reality rearranging itself around the spell Tyki had woven into the Deus Ex. 

He wasn’t entirely sure why all Link’s clothes were suddenly adult sized, but he supposed that might just be some random improbability the spell had conjured up. Endless propabilities were, after all, impossible to calculate. 

“Shit,” Tyki breathed, looking at that small, six-year-old Link swamped in his own too-big clothes. Yeah, the clothes weren’t the problem. The six-year-old Link wearing them was. Fuzziness fading, he came to the conclusion that he had not, in fact, been capitalising on child slavery and had, in fact, rewound his very own bumbling, stern, determinedly earnest nineteen-year-old Link into a toddler. 

“Shouldn’t say that,” the little Link said, prim as a precocious child who knew all the rules. 

“Sorry,” Tyki amended thoughtlessly, not quite able to tear his eyes away from the mess he’d made of things. “I’ll put a penny in the jar later. You are Howard, right?” he felt the need to clarify.

“Of course,” he said.

“Of course,” Tyki agreed, voice coded with grievance.

“Is that bad?” Link asked, and looked very much as though he was reigning in a whole lot of worry.

Tyki opened his mouth and paused for a moment. “Better than the alternative,” he admitted.

“What’s an alternative?” he asked, head tilting in confusion.

“You  _ not  _ being Howard,” Tyki answered. 

Link seemed to think about that before nodding firmly. “Good,” he said, brows puckered with a small, comically stern frown. “I don’t want to have to be someone else.”

“Well,” Tyki sniffed, “you shouldn’t have to be someone else whether people want you to or not.” He paused for a moment, and frowned. This Link didn’t even know what the word  _ alternative  _ meant. Was he really missing almost fifteen years of his memories? Cautious, he placed his glass on the stout table by his chair and stood so he could move to crouch in front of the little Link. “Do you know why you’re here?”

Link nodded very seriously and said, voice laden with the gravity of his situation, “You’re protecting me from the mean people.”

“The mean people,” Tyki repeated, hopes falling.

Link nodded again. “They make me do stuff even if I don’t really want to do it,” he explained, as though Tyki were the one who needed reminding.

Right. “Well,” Tyki said slowly, “they can only make you do things because you’ve got a curse that makes you do whatever anyone asks.”

“Yeah!” Link announced excitedly, inordinately thrilled that Tyki understood his situation, his whole face lit up in a childish beam of excited hopefulness. “You’re going to help fix it, right?”

How to say he’d already tried. “I’ve already tried,” he said, artless and simple, “but to see if it worked, I need to try make you do something. Is that alright?”

The little Link folded his arm across his chest and planted his elbow on his wrist to thoughtfully press his fingers against his cheek. “What if we don’t check?” he asked with a look as though he was covering all his bases. He was a pretty clever kid. 

Well, Tyki’s Link was pretty clever too. He supposed it only made sense that this was where he’d come from.

“We won’t know if it worked, otherwise,” Tyki reasoned, voice gentle. “I know it’s not very nice, but we won’t make you do anything bad.”

He thought it over very deeply before demanding, “Promise it’s not bad?”

“Promise,” Tyki agreed.

“That’s not Link,” Allen realised aloud, ten minutes late, and Tyki closed his eyes in exasperation at the alarm that arose in the small Link’s face.

A quiet glare shot to his demon from the corner of his eye, Tyki corrected, “He is Link; he’s just not  _ our  _ Link.” Turning to face the small child again he entreated, “Remember what I told you?”

“I’m Howard,” he recounted meekly, “even when someone doesn’t want me to be.”

“Exactly,” Tyki smiled, and reached up to ruffle his down-soft fringe. “So,” he announced, “should we see if the spell worked?”

“Which it clearly didn’t,” Allen stressed. “Why is Link a _baby?”_

A voice of restrained reason, Tyki explained, “We can fine-tune the rest later. We just need to see if it fixed the curse.”

“I’m not a baby,” the little Link huffed. “I made sure the sorcerer at the top of the valley would look after Tokusa,” he reasoned.

“If you were an adult, wouldn’t you look after him yourself?” Allen countered, prim in the face of arguing with a six-year-old.

“Can we please see if the spell worked?” Tyki sighed, rubbing at his brow in vexation. 

“Sure,” Allen challenged with a sour sort of glare. “Howard, go to your room.”

Appalled, Tyki gave Allen a look of disappointed horror phrased as a question reading something along the lines of  _ why on god’s good earth would you make him do that.  _ Allen lifted his chin in an expression of unapologetic stubbornness, and Tyki turned to look at the way the little Link’s face was twisting with confused distress, chest puffing with a deep, upset breath, his small fists clenched at his sides, before he turned on his heel and dashed to scramble messily up the stairs.

Silently, Tyki dragged his hand down his face to rest over his mouth. A door slammed upstairs and Tyki, still crouched on the floor, turned his head to look at Allen. “What is your problem?” he asked, bland with a deep and genuine lack of understanding.

“That’s not Link,” Allen said staunchly, arms folded staunchly across his chest.

“It’s not anyone else, either,” Tyki countered, pushing himself to stand.

“It’s not  _ my  _ Link,” he insisted, unmoving, a glower levelled at Tyki from the hearth.

“That’s not the point,” Tyki bit out, snatching up the book of Perrault’s and making to follow the little Link up the stairs.

Sour, Allen muttered, “You’re the one who keeps messing up.”

“You’re not obliged to make things worse when I do,” he snapped, pausing halfway up the stairs so he could glare down at his sulking demon. “It was more powerful than I expected and I rewound him further than I’d thought, but I intend to do better next time.” Storming up to Link’s bedroom, he suggested, “Maybe you should try the same.”

At the door to the Porthaven room, Tyki breathed a quiet sigh and dragged his fingers back through his hair before rapping his knuckles against the door in a tentative knock. There was no answer, but rather than try again Tyki tilted his head close and pressed his ear against the wood. 

Quiet, forcibly restrained, he could hear quiet sniffling and choked-out sobs. 

All the heat of irritation falling from him, Tyki gently pushed open the old door and stepped into the room, sure to close it after him. He could only see the top of Link’s little head, hiding as he was down in the space between the bed and the wall, hunkered small and fragile against the stout end table.

“Hey,” Tyki murmured, rounding the end of the bed and lowering himself to his hands and knees so he could crawl to sit next to the small, crying boy. “What’s wrong?” he entreated when the little Link turned his head away to surreptitiously wipe his sleeves across his flushed cheeks.

He shook his head, quick and staunch and firm, and glanced at Tyki from the corner of an eye welled up with wavering tears. Lips bitten, face crumpled like he was trying with all his might to stop crying. Trying to be a grown up before he was seven years old. A painful sort of fondness bloomed in him. He might not be Tyki’s Link, but he was still Howard Link, and even as a child he was so staunch in his maturity that Tyki couldn’t help but respect him. 

A fond sort of respect - one that made Tyki want to take a weight off his shoulders, rather than trust he would always be able to carry more. Of course he would. Of course. But that didn’t mean he had to.

Settling in beside the little Link, who didn’t have the same practice at hiding how overwhelmed he was that Tyki’s Link did, he asked in an entreaty to let some of that pain go, “Did Allen upset you?”

He shook his head again, and sucked in a trembling breath. Eyes on his knees, all but drowning in the other Link’s pyjamas, he parted his quaking lips and confessed with a voice so shaky that it almost fell apart, “It hurts.”

Alarm rose in Tyki with a terrifying fervor and he forced himself to keep his voice calm when he asked, “What hurts?”

“When they make me do stuff,” the little Link mumbled, hiding his face against his knees, shoulders trembling. “It really hurts,” he gasped, overcome with a sob, “all inside me.”

Subdued with apologetic sincerity, Tyki murmured, “No-one’s going to make you do anything. Okay?” He reached out to take one of Link’s hands and smoothed his tense little fist out between his palms. “I promise,” he said, keeping the pain-filled boy’s hand between his. “I’m going to make sure no-one can control you ever again. Here-” he proposed, lifting the little Link’s hand and maneuvering his stumpy digits so all but his littlest finger were curled down. “I can’t cross my heart,” he reasoned, hooking their fingers together, “so how about this?”

The little Link blinked at him, flighty and bleary with tears, and looked at their linked hands. “What’s this?” he asked, finger curling tighter around Tyki’s.

“It’s a pinky promise,” he said. “They’re impossible to break, you know?”

His eyes went wide, big and watery, and he looked at Tyki as though he’d never had anyone offer to help him with anything in his young life.

“I promise, Howard,” Tyki murmured, his voice filled with sincerity. “I’ll keep you safe.”

Shy and abashed, the little Link nodded, wiped his cheek on his shoulder and sniffled his tears away. No longer crying. A child accepting comfort.

“Do you want to come out?” Tyki entreated, dropping his hand, but he shook his head quickly and curled his arms tight around his knees. Not quite ready for that. “Okay,” Tyki considered, glancing around them. “It’s okay,” he promised, pushing himself to stand. “How about this,” he proposed and set about dragging the blankets off the bed. 

He bundled the comforter and pillows into a nest on the floor and draped the sheet from the bed to the window sill, weighed it down with a heavy candle from the bedside, and crouched down to pull aside the draped corner of the sheet to climb into their slapdash tent, picking Perrault up from where he’d left it on the floor.

“Want to read some fairy tales?” he asked as he settled back down amongst the light pillows and soft down blanket, and the little Link gave a shy nod and cautiously clambered over to tuck himself against Tyki’s side as though he wasn’t sure if that was allowed.

Without making a fuss, Tyki looped his arm around his shoulders and opened the book in his lap so he could read along. He wasn’t sure that it mattered, but regardless he flipped to the back of the book for something his Link hadn’t yet read to Allen. 

“There was once a very rich merchant,” he read carefully, “who had six children. Three sons, and three daughters; being a man of sense, he spared no cost for their education, but gave them all kinds of masters. His daughters were extremely pretty - especially the youngest. When she was little everybody admired her, and called her  _ The Little Beauty.” _

“Pretty,” the little Link murmured, hand reached out to trace the glossy image of Belle printed on the other page. 

Throughout the story he didn’t have much input but to murmur agreement to the way the Beast treated his Beauty - giving her everything she could desire within his castle, despite that he couldn’t allow her to leave. 

As Tyki reached the middle of the story, the little Link reached out to lift the book off Tyki’s lap so he could awkwardly maneuver himself to sit beneath it and spread the covers across his knees. Unconcerned, Tyki rested his chin atop the little Link’s head so he could see the pages and read, “‘You are very obliging,’ answered Beauty, ‘I am pleased with your kindness, and when I consider that, your deformity scarcely appears.’

‘Yes, yes,’ said the Beast. ‘My heart is good, but still I am a monster.’

‘Among mankind,’ said Beauty, ‘there are many that deserve that name more than you, and I prefer you, just as you are, to those who, under a human form, hide a treacherous, corrupt and ungrateful heart.’”

All the time, the little Link’s fingers traced the illustration on the opposite page - a monstrous beast with ragged fur, torn clothes and sharp, horrific teeth tracing the face of a sweetly beautiful woman with an enormous, tender claw.

“The fairy gave a stroke of her wand,” Tyki concluded as Link was smothering huge yawns and slumping back against Tyki’s chest, “and in a moment all that were in the hall were transported into the prince’s dominions. His subjects received him with joy. He married Beauty, and lived with her many years, and their happiness - as it was founded on virtue - was complete. The end.”

Twisting to curl himself closer against Tyki’s chest, his face tucked into the crook of Tyki’s neck, the little Link murmured, “It’s a good end.”

“It is,” Tyki agreed on a murmur, pushing the book off his lap to lean back against his pillows and raise a hand to gently pat at Link’s back. 

Link’s arms looped up around Tyki’s neck and squeezed him tight, hold slackening after a moment. Quiet, voice filled with subdued, mindless thankfulness, the little Link mumbled, “I love you,” into Tyki’s collar.

A helpless smile pulled at Tyki’s lips and he lightly rubbed his hand up and down Link’s back when he allowed, “Well, you’re very sweet, Howard. But I’ll be happy to have my Link back.”

He nodded very seriously, as though he’d heard some incomparable gravity of affection in Tyki’s voice, and said in a sleepy murmur, “I hope you get him back soon. He sounds really special.”

That small smile settled gentle into the corners of Tyki’s lips and, methodically patting the little Link’s back at a slow tempo, encouraging him to sleep, he could only think to agree, “He is.”

It didn’t take long for him to fall asleep. Worn out from crying, and long since calmed by the story, exhaustion was quick to claim him. Tyki let his hand settle against his back and considered that the last kid he’d had to look after had been Road almost ten years ago, and it had been a hugely different experience. 

This little Link would disappear soon enough. That was probably for the best. Tyki didn’t particularly trust himself to be a good influence on a child. If this Link were to stay, no doubt he’d develop all kinds of issues under Tyki’s care. Not to mention that Allen seemed to have a savage dislike for him under the impression that he  _ wasn’t really Link.  _

Yeah, it was for the best that Tyki would be getting his Link back. 

The little Link twitched in his sleep and a small sound fell past his lips. Tyki held still, concerned, and waited a long moment to see if it might continue. His breaths started coming short and sharp and unsteady, and his small hands fisted in the front of Tyki’s shirt, face scrunched against whatever dreams he was faring, quiet whines slipping past his sleeping lips. 

Concern spiking, Tyki rubbed his hand up and down Link’s back as he tried to decide if he should wake him or let him sleep through it. 

Eventually, at a sound of pure terror trembling out of Link, Tyki pressed his lips to the top of his down-soft head and rested there, eyes closed in concentration, and tried to fill his dreams with the warmth and comfort of their pillow fort.

Before long, the little Link quietened and his breaths deepened, slow and steady. Comfortable. His clinging fingers loosened in Tyki’s shirt, his nightmares chased away. Certain he was resting soundly, and with nothing to do but let him sleep his exhaustion away, Tyki leaned back against the pillows with a quiet sigh, closed his eyes, and dozed off.

 

* * *

 

When Link woke he found he was warm and comfortable with the lingering satisfaction of bad dreams turned good, and without a thought he tucked his head more securely against Tyki’s shoulder, a happy sigh brushing past his lips to fan across his collar. 

All in a moment his mind snapped to the realisation that -  _ oh.  _ Oh, god.  _ Tyki.  _ He’d fallen  _ asleep  _ on him.

Careful not to wake him Link pulled away, becoming all too aware of the loose warmth of Tyki’s hand resting heavy with sleep at his back, the other on his bare knee. Bare because - god, all he was wearing was the too-large shirt Tyki had given him when he’d brought up that he didn’t have anything to sleep in. 

Dimly he remembered himself being a child, but it seemed somewhat removed. It would explain the shirt - none of his clothes would have fit a kid - but it had felt more as though he’d been asleep, or elsewhere, throughout the whole thing. 

He sat there for a long moment, in Tyki’s lap. Not entirely sure what to do with himself, now that he was awake and, well.  _ Himself.  _ Breaths wound nervous and tense, he hazarded a quick glance at Tyki’s face. 

He was… asleep. Deeply asleep. Lips slightly parted, the fan of his lashes shading his cheeks. Sitting up against pillows propped to the bedside. Carefully, Link glanced around. Brushed his fingers against the sheet draped over their heads, took in the blanket bundled on the floor beneath them and the book of fairy tales left open on the floor. 

Unwilling, a small smile tugged at the corner of his lips. 

_ Tyki.  _

Looking after Link, even when he wasn’t Link. 

Heart or no heart, he was a good man. To Link, at least. And his chest, rising and falling with the steady cadence of sleep, was looking incredibly inviting to the way Link was struggling to blink the haze of his nap away. 

Cautious, he leaned back in to rest his head on Tyki’s shoulder, nose tucked beneath his chin. Hand resting on Tyki’s chest, he let his eyes flutter closed. There were no bad dreams to be found with his ear pressed to the odd stillness beneath the scar on his chest, and his hands resting on Link like half an embrace were… warm. Comforting.

So maybe just a minute. 

He wasn’t the child Tyki had cradled to sleep, but they could realise that a minute from now.

_ Fifty-nine… _

_ Fifty-eight… _

_ Fifty-seven… _

Through sleep-heavy eyes, Link reached out a hand to curl his pinky around Tyki’s, making no move to shift him from where it was resting on Link’s knee. 

_ I promise, Howard,  _ he’d said, eyes serious with unshakable sincerity.  _ I’ll keep you safe. _

A heartless man, keeping himself locked in a castle. Unfit for the world to see. Perhaps he was a monster, of a sort. In a manner of speaking. Reaching twenty-eight and twenty-seven, Link didn’t think a man who would make earnest promises to crying children and cradle them as they slept could truly be a monster - no matter what Tyki thought of himself.

Twisting slightly, Link peered over his shoulder to the book Tyki had been reading to him - to the illustration it had fallen open to. An enormous beast, ragged fur and torn clothes, jutting teeth and sharp claws, tenderly tracing the face of a beautiful woman. 

Cheeks turning red, he abashedly buried his face against Tyki’s sleeping chest, eyes scrunched closed

_ Ten… nine… eight… seven... _

He wasn’t sure if Tyki woke up when Link forced himself to slip out of his hold and duck out of the tent Tyki had built for them. But Tyki didn’t say anything, and nor did Link, and all he did was pull his pants on over his bare legs and tie the red silk ribbon around the tail of his braid before slipping out to start on making lunch.

 

* * *

 

That night, Neah stalked through his dreams once more. White spider hands weaving webs through Link’s hair as he playfully dragged his fingers through it. Promises like threats murmured behind Link’s ear, and he couldn’t move his body. All he could do was sit and listen, and when the thick, silken body of his gold-eyed snake slid over Link’s shoulder and draped itself around his neck, he couldn’t even breathe. 

Couldn’t even scream.

Even as its coils curled tighter and tighter, choking the life out of him until darkness crashed in and turned him blind, he couldn’t do anything but sit there and die.

He woke with a start to burning lungs, and dragged a desperate, ragged breath deep into his chest. Hands clenched into fists tangled in the sheets, cold sweat on his skin. He thought he was truly blind for a moment, in the darkness of his room, until he turned his eyes to the window and forced himself to accept the reality of Porthaven’s harbour glimmering with ships docked, the meandering glow of watchmen pacing the pier. 

He let his head drop, eyes squeezed closed, and forced himself to breathe. Fists tangled in the sheets. Cold sweat clinging to his skin. Heart thrumming terror beneath his skin.

He lay down and rolled to his side, let his cheek warm the cold half of his pillow. Pulled in breath after certain breath. He was fine, he was fine, he was fine.

His exhale shuddered throughout his whole body, and he curled in on himself to try cradle the memory of the good dreams Tyki had breathed into his sleeping thoughts. Tried to remember them, tried to banish his ghosts.

Eventually, unable to make himself sleep, Link pulled the blankets away and slipped down the hall to the bathroom, where he splashed his face first with cold water, and then warm. Dragging a towel down his cheeks, Link looked at his reflection.

He looked dull and haggard and small. Scared. 

Even now, months after proving that Tyki’s castle was safe, Link was scared. He buried his face in the towel and breathed a long, shaky sigh.

When he closed the bathroom door behind him, he had every intention of going back to bed and trying get what sleep he could. But he paused there, and glanced down the hall to Tyki’s door. Almost unwilling, and certainly ill-advised, Link went to tap tentative knuckles against Tyki’s door, quiet and meek. 

It swung open a little - not latched properly - and Link hesitated to peer in. 

“Tyki?” he murmured to the sliver of light that slunk in across the room, catching on bits and bobs and shiny things. 

There was a drawled hum of question, and Link almost turned at that point to close the door behind him and go back to his own room. But even as the thought crossed his mind, Tyki had pushed himself to sit up, the light brushing on a sleep-narrowed eye and the sheen of that long-healed burn scarred across his chest. “Something wrong?” he mumbled, dragging a hand through his hair to push it back from his face.

Link hesitated, words caught in his throat, before he said, half a whisper, “I just… thought…” Quiet as a breath, eyes averted. Distraught, insofar as he would ever be seen to be so. 

A weight seemed to lift off Tyki’s shoulders, tension unravelling, and he murmured, “ ‘S okay. Come on.”

A nervous breath shuddering past Link’s lips, he closed the door behind him and toed carefully across the foreign room to the other side of the bed. In the half-dark, Tyki lay back against the pillows with a quiet sigh, and Link sat tentative on the edge of the king mattress, folded the heavy, rich covers back and slipped his bare legs beneath them.

The ceiling overhead was once again filled with a river of strange stars. Uncountable thousands, like what Link had only seen in that brief moment when he’d helped Tyki into bed. 

Completely lost with what he’d even been looking for in going there, Link lay on his side at the very edge of the mattress, dug his nervous fingers into the pillow beneath his head. 

“Hey,” he heard Tyki murmur, felt the shifted weight of him draping his arm across the empty space between them. Link could all but feel his lax fingers curling not far from his tense shoulders. A quiet invitation. 

Link let his eyes slip closed, not sure on if he should take it. 

Tyki didn’t move, and after some minutes Link wondered if he were sleeping, or still waiting. Careful, he pushed himself up, rolled over to gently rest his head in the crook of Tyki’s elbow.

He dragged in a sharp breath, and turned to blink over at Link. He must have dozed off.

In a whispered voice, shadows of that same fear curling through his words, Link asked with his eyes pinned on Tyki’s sleep-blurred face, “What do you dream about?”

Tyki took a moment to blink, and seemed somewhat lost. “I…” he started, and shook his head a little. “I’m not sure,” he admitted, a quiet murmur. “I don’t dream very often.”

A quiet hum passed Link’s lips and he closed his eyes. “Oh,” was all he said, dissatisfaction churning beneath his lungs.

The musk of cigarettes lingered on Tyki’s hands, and Link could feel the movement in his arm as he dragged his thumb across his fingertips, a low rumble of consideration echoing in his chest. Searching for something to offer Link. “I used to have a recurring dream,” he said at length, and Link opened his eyes to find he was looking up at that star-filled sky over their heads with something too complex to read written in his expression. “Quite often when I was younger,” he explained, “and then… not so much now.”

Link shifted, made himself more comfortable. Offered a quiet, encouraging hum. 

“It’s the night I met Allen,” he confided, and turned to glance at Link with a small smile tugging at the corner of his lips. “Have you ever seen a starstorm?” he asked. “Up close?”

He shook his head against Tyki’s arm, a wordless answer. 

Something of a laugh breathed past Tyki’s lips and he looked back out at that endless sky above them. “It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen,” he said, voice caught in a whisper. “Stars dancing across the sky, fields, lakes. So full of life that you think your heart might take flight out of your chest to join them.” The smile sitting on his lips changed, turned somewhat mocking, a little bit sad. “Maybe that’s why,” he mused to the stars, Link’s eyes indulging in his profile. “Maybe you need a heart to make up dreams.”

He watched the way Tyki’s eyes fanned shut, watched the way his chest lifted with the depth of the breath he drew in. Wondered how it might feel to rest his head there once more.

“Sometimes,” he murmured, rich and low and soothing enough for Link to close his eyes and sink into, “there’d be a boy there, too. He didn’t look like he was crying,” he said, “but I think he was. I could see it. Like a huge weight of immeasurable loss. He was looking for something,” he hummed, “but all he found was me.”

Link could feel his breaths deepen, could hear Tyki’s words slowing. Comfortable, resting on Tyki’s arm. Lost sleep coming for him. 

“I think I made that part up, though,” Tyki considered to Link’s drifting thoughts. “I don’t think there was anyone there, that night. But meteor showers are full of magic and things you can’t really explain, so maybe it did happen.” His fingers brushed across Link’s brow, through his fringe. Soft and familiar. “Maybe he was there,” he allowed, and Link didn’t have to rouse himself into opening his eyes to know Tyki’s gaze was on him, or to see the quiet smile he knew would be sitting on his lips.

 

* * *

 

When Tyki woke the next morning, lazy sunbeams drifting through the window, he didn’t need to look to recognise the warmth of Link’s body curled against his, head resting on Tyki’s chest, slender arms draped over him. He knew him by the gentle smell of spice and sugar spun through his hair and the soft slope of his shoulders as Tyki traced his fingers absentmindedly up the line of his back, a teasing touch brushed across the nape of his neck where the collar of his shirt had pulled loose in his sleep. 

Tyki shifted a little, settling into the comfort of morning, and let his eyes slip open narrow and lazy when his fingers found the silk of Link’s unbound hair. 

Gold strands splayed around him, locks draped across his sleeping face. He was lovely at peace, his brow smooth and unlined with worry or stress. Tyki let himself bask in the quiet thrill of having him back, and dragged his fingers slowly through the satin curtain of his lovely, straight hair. 

Still more than half asleep, his dozing mind stumbled across the name Briar Rose, and thought of a curse that could only be broken with a kiss. 

Tempting, Tyki thought, relaxing back against the pillows with a smile teasing at the corners of his lips. Link would do well to be kissed. He had that impossible sweetness about him, so often hidden and locked away behind walls of severity and determination that Tyki couldn’t help but want to see him unravel, just a little, under an affectionate touch. 

Light fingers dragging up and down the slender curve of his neck, Tyki found that was enough in the hazey warmth of such a lovely morning, and let himself drift into a light sleep until such a time as Link might awaken by his own means.

It didn’t take long. As the sun lazily drifted down Tyki’s face and across his chest, Link murmured and shifted until, light falling over his closed eyes, he drew in a deep breath and let them flutter open. 

There was a brief moment where he didn’t seem to realise his position, choosing rather than pulling away to bury his face closer against Tyki’s neck, fingers curling absently against his chest. 

It felt like a blessing, of sorts, to be gifted the sight of Howard Link slowly rousing himself to wakefulness. 

All in an instant he seemed to notice that he was, in fact, tucked against Tyki’s chest, and rushed to sit up with a sharp breath, hands pulled from Tyki’s skin as though he’d been burned. His eyes went wide with dawning horror when he saw Tyki was awake, and the teasing little smile curling on his lips. 

Kneeling back on Tyki’s bed, hands cradled to his chest with blankets pooled around him and Tyki’s old shirt all but hanging off his shoulders, hair a lovely, tousled mess, Tyki’s smile creased into a quiet laugh. 

“Good morning,” he mused to Link’s wordless horror. 

Blinking himself into some thin veil of composure, he greeted in a small, nervous sort of voice, “Good morning.”

Amusement unabated, Tyki asked without moving from where he was laying amongst his pillows, “How did you sleep?”

Link averted his eyes, cleared his throat some. “Fine,” he admitted, eyes studious on Tyki’s decor. “Thank you,” he added, all but forced himself to bite out.

“I suppose you won’t have to bother with dragging me down to breakfast,” he considered, smile still teasing at his lips.

“I suppose I will,” Link countered, levelling him with a scowl. “Lord knows you’ll stay right here and fall back asleep while I’m busy getting ready for the day, and I’ll have to come wake you up regardless.”

“Would you like some help?” Tyki offered, simple and good-intentioned. 

Link blinked at him, the irate heat falling out of him in a moment. Unsure, he hazarded, “I don’t really  _ need  _ help.”

“That doesn’t mean you couldn’t do with some,” Tyki reasoned, bland. 

Link considered that for a long moment, a confused little frown creasing his brow. “No,” he announced staunchly, unfolding his legs from beneath himself and twisting to slip off the edge of the bed. “Having you help would defeat the purpose of cooking you breakfast,” he reasoned as he fixed the way Tyki’s shirt hung off his shoulders and smoothed it so it covered the top of his thighs in some degree of modesty. 

“Oh,” Tyki remarked, a little teasing, a little mocking, “is that what you're doing? And here I thought I was a ‘might as well’ afterthought.”

Link scowled at him, rising to the easy bait even as he pulled his hair into some semblance of order over his shoulder. “I've been coming to get you for breakfast every day,” he reminded sternly, making for the door. “What about that makes you think you're an afterthought? If I didn't intend to feed you I wouldn't cook enough for you to scavenge.”

“It's lovely,” Tyki teased, “feeling appreciated.”

“I wouldn't know,” Link said over his shoulder, prim and smart, before closing the door behind himself. 

Tyki leaned back into his pillows with a breath like a laugh falling past his lips and let his eyes fall closed. Yes, it was good to have his Link back. True to form, he considered staying there to doze off in the warmth of the sun drifting through his window until Link came to fetch him, but a good mood was still teasing at the corners of his lips and it seemed a shame to sleep it away.

Drawing in a deep breath, he pushed himself to sit up and fumbled at the end table beside his bed for a band, messily tying his hair back without bothering to brush it out as he stood and made for the door.

Link was already down by the hearth, studiously layering bacon in the pan, already dressed, his hair still hung loose over his shoulder, stray locks curling against the nape of his neck to fall down his back. 

“What are you doing here?” he sniffed, a short glance thrown over his shoulder.

“I live here,” Tyki defended with an affectedly miffed air. “Also,” he added, coming to peer over Link’s shoulder as he cracked eggs into the pan, “the greatest joy I have in life is dismantling expectations.”

“How predictable,” Link commented. “I’m sure I could use that to my advantage.”

“The opposite of predictable, actually,” Tyki corrected, picking up the spatula by Link’s elbow to poke at the sizzling bacon. “That’s the point.”

“All I need is tell you to do what I  _ don’t  _ want you to do,” Link reasoned, bland, slipping away from the pan and effectively leaving Tyki in charge of minding the food while he took to mincing herbs.

“I told you I wanted to help,” Tyki said, scowling at the small smile Link was hardly bothering to hide.

“Only because I told you I didn’t want your help,” Link countered.

“Well,” Tyki huffed, “you’re doing a very good job of making me not want to help you.”

“Maybe that’s what I want,” Link said, definitely not bothering to hide his amusement. 

“Maybe I’ll help regardless of your foul manipulation simply because I’m a nice, helpful person.”

Link laughed outright at that - a sound that shocked Tyki, for a moment. Helpless amusement falling from him with lighthearted simplicity. Tyki blinked, hid away his surprise. Couldn’t help the pleased smile that had taken up residence on his lips. He wasn’t sure he’d ever heard Link laugh - and certainly not like that. It was an incredibly relieved sound. 

“Right,” he was mocking through his amusement. “Nice and helpful is definitely two things that you are.”

“Yeah, well,” Tyki scoffed, side-eyeing the methodical efficiency with which he was chopping mint and chilli and tomato, “don’t cut your fingers off, Mister Self-Righteous.”

“Don't burn your eggs,” Link countered, impressively self-righteous. 

It was apparent from the beginning that Tyki had more interest in picking teasing conversation than minding the stove, and so it was no surprise that he didn't actually end up being very much help at all, or that every now and then Link would push in to take over with a half-hearted roll of his eyes. 

At the end of it all, with Tyki having barely lifted a finger so much as wandered around the kitchen shuffling in and out of Link’s way to find another bench to lean against and a bacon rind or five being ‘dropped’ into Allen’s greedy mouth despite Tyki’s reprimanding glances, they sat down together at the corner of the table with an emphatically successful breakfast.

Even as the first bite melted across his tongue, bacon perfectly crisp and eggs perfectly soft with that stupidly, gorgeously absurd relish of chilli and mint woven throughout it - even as the complex simplicity of it all filled his mouth, Tyki knew it. Knew for certainty as a marvelous satisfaction set deep into his bones with a pleased sigh and a glowing warmth what he’d only hazarded at before.

In his cooking, in his baking, in anything those clever hands of his wove together - from the hair he hadn’t yet braided to the fish he filleted for their dinners - Link had magic in him. 

Something subtle and obscure and entirely, shamelessly selfless. Good intentions and an overwhelming desire for whoever ate his food to enjoy it, and to find as much satisfaction in eating as he got in creating. That was Link’s magic. Earnest determination. 

It wasn’t that Tyki had never noticed before, but it had always been quieter. Easy to mistake for a full stomach and a warm meal, even if it was always, always more than that. And Link - Link hardly even seemed aware of it. Didn’t seem to know he  _ was  _ magical. That he was weaving spells into every dish.

It felt odd, to know for certainty. That Link wasn’t just cooking for him, but casting. He’d never…

Well, Tyki had never had anyone weave a spell of him, and it was no secret how Link went far and above for every detail in every meal. Realisation truly setting in, the gravity of appreciation that Link meant when he said  _ I’m cooking for you,  _ Tyki found he felt quite… small. In the honesty of Link’s earnest thankfulness. 

And, truly, Tyki didn’t know if he should thank him in return - or, in fact, how.

If Link had magic in him then it might be that he would break his curse by his own means. That would, in effect, align with the Bookman’s promise that Tyki wouldn’t find a cure in any place he chose to look. If breaking the spell was in Link’s hands, there would be no way for Tyki to do it for him.

Subdued, formless words stuck in his throat, he indulged Link’s selfless kindness in silence.

Whether it was predetermined that he could or couldn’t gift Link his freedom, he’d be damned if he ever stopped trying.


	6. Chapter 6

Under the protection of Tyki’s arm looped through his, Link meandered through the familiar, ever-shifting stalls of the Porthaven markets, his basket already laden with groceries. He was light of heart. Relieved to feel safe again, comfort brought along with Tyki’s presence by his shoulder. 

Tyki was distracted. Not so lost in his thoughts that he didn’t notice Link’s discomfort at the fish stalls, and not so detached as to not draw his conclusions about the whole thing, single out the man Link was staunchly avoiding eye contact with and offering him a kind, villainous smile before subtly drawing the freshness out of his stock as they left, the putrid stench of rotting fish quickly filling that sect of the harbour. 

But, distracted enough that he didn’t have much opinion or input whether the fruits Link chose were fresh enough, or what he might like for dinner. 

“Lemon meringue pie,” he’d suggested absentmindedly, busily inspecting the charms and dreamcatchers of the next stall over, which he’d murmured to Link in an undertone any number of times were absolutely bogus and were about as magical as a bundle of twigs washed up on a river shore - which, incidentally, he would then muse out loud, they very likely were. 

Rather than try explain to his distracted state that lemon meringue pie did not constitute dinner so much as a snack, or perhaps dessert, Link simply sighed and bundled a few eggs and choice lemons into the basket before handing over the money with a weary smile offered to the shopkeep.

“Are you alright?” Link felt the need to demand in the instance of Tyki almost jostling someone into dropping an enormous bundle of freshly purchased groceries to be trampled by the crowd into the pavement.

“What?” Tyki asked, bland and oblivious, blinking his absent attention down onto Link. 

“What’s  _ wrong?”  _ Link pressed, pulling Tyki away from the flow of the crowd for a moment’s peace.

“What?” Tyki repeated, confusion lacing his voice and knitting a furrow into his brow. “I’m fine,” he said, as though he hadn’t spent the past twenty minutes so completely spaced out that it had only been thanks to Link’s arm looped through his that he hadn’t gotten lost like an dawdling child. 

Link arched a brow. “You’ve been a little preoccupied,” he understated. 

“Have I?” Tyki asked, and in a moment seemed to realise how even asking that was an answer in and of itself. “My mind may have been elsewhere,” he admitted, a sheepish, roguish sort of smile pulling at his lips as though he anticipated Link would forgive him if he so much as grinned in his direction. 

“I’m not upset,” Link felt the need to explain, despite his scowl, “but I’d be happier if you would tell me what’s got you so distracted.”

“Just thinking,” he said, his hand settling between Link’s shoulders to usher them back out onto the street proper, turning back for home. “About your dreams, and such. It would be quite easy for me to mix something up,” he reasoned. “You know, to help you sleep.”

Link hesitated, torn, not entirely certain on how to phrase his thoughts. Careful of picking his words, he said, “I definitely appreciate the sentiment, but… well.” He paused, pursed his lips as he searched for the right way to say it. “Don’t you think it’d be better to let them go away on their own?” he asked, glancing up at Tyki with uncertainty written across his face. “If I took something to stop them, I’d be too scared of them coming back to ever stop taking it - even if they’d already passed,” he explained.

“Wel,” Tyki considered, nodding to Link’s concerns, “perhaps something to keep on your bedside for if they do get bad. For emergencies, or something,” he added, reassuring Link’s concerns with a small, certain smile. “There’s no shame in needing help,” he reminded. “Or accepting it, you know.”

Embarrassment was already colouring Link’s cheeks at the line of reasoning his thoughts had followed and he lifted his chin, averted his eyes in denial of the pink blush he could feel staining them. “We’ve already found something that works,” he countered, words firm with his embarrassment, “haven’t we? What do I need another unnecessary spell for. If you ask me,” he added, shooting Tyki a meaningful sort of scowl, “one is one too many.”

Tyki laughed at that, indulgently charmed, and he draped his arm over Link’s shoulders in comfortable familiarity. “Even if I might like to,” he said, and looked very much as though he was teasing, “you shouldn’t count on me to kiss your bad dreams away. I’m not always home,” he reminded, his smile turning gentle for a brief moment. “You know that.”

Link refused to say anything to that, made speechless by his red blush, and stayed quiet until they’d left the marketplace long behind them, Tyki’s words caught him stuck on rather specific thoughts.

It was only with the door closed safely behind them and Tyki taking the basket from Link that, empty-handed, he found his tongue. Abashed, somehow nervous because of it, he admitted as he toed his shoes off with his eyes determinedly averted, “I’ve never actually had a kiss. That is,” he amended, stooping down to move them beneath the coat rack, “a real one.”

The colour of Tyki’s voice was very obviously teasing when he asked, “What, were you saving it?”

Miffed in his embarrassment, Link sniffed, “I was, actually.” Cold regret quickly followed his words and, quickly subdued, he repeated with a tone of reluctance, “I  _ was.  _ It wasn’t really…” He trailed off, words not quite enough to say it all, and found he’d thoughtlessly pressed the back of his hand to his mouth as though to wipe away a still-lingering sensation. A laugh tumbled out of him, sharp and jagged and loose with veiled upset, and he dropped his hand to wipe his fingers on his pants. “This ridiculous curse,” he muttered, voice somewhat harsh - or perhaps brittle. Eyes pinned to the garish red-and-gold rug.

Caution settling like a weighty silence, he watched from the corner of his eye as Tyki set the basket down on the kitchen bench, feeling like a skittish animal both from the nerves building into tangled brambles in his chest and the way Tyki looked at him. 

He asked, slow, words phrased carefully, “Someone… commanded you to kiss them?”

Silent, Link nodded. Sharp and stilted. Stepped away from the door to busily set about unpacking their groceries. The air of his words turned forcibly noncommittal, he reasoned, “It wasn’t  _ bad.”  _ It was singularly the most awful thing that had ever been done to him. “But it wasn’t… what I wanted,” he admitted, brushing past Tyki for the pantry, studious eyes averted, “from a kiss I had been saving.”

“Or at all,” Tyki remarked, something in the colour of his voice bordering on outrage. “Link,” he commanded, hands oxymoronically gentle when he took Link’s shoulders and turned him away from the cupboard to face his earnest concern. “Did they make you do anything else?”

He shrugged, another short, sharp movement, breath tangled in his throat. Eyes on the collar of Tyki’s shirt. “Just silly things,” he admitted, and forced himself to meet Tyki’s eyes when he lifted a hand to curl gentle fingers of reassurance around Tyki’s wrist. “Nothing worse than that,” he promised.

Tyki breathed a tight, dissatisfied breath, but ultimately let Link brush past and return to the groceries. Words woven through with a complex current of emotion, he asked, “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“The same reason I didn’t tell you about my nightmares,” Link said simply, busily bustling about, “or that it hurts when people make me do things. I didn’t want you to know,” he reasoned. A quiet breath fell past his lips when he set the flour and brown sugar on the benchtop, left out for the pie he intended to bake. He hesitated there, the forced nonchalance breathing out of him. “I just,” he murmured, back turned to Tyki, knowing he shouldn’t say it even as the words slipped past his lips, “thought…”

“What?” Tyki asked, patient with Link’s reluctance.

Another laugh forced its way through Link’s throat, short and sharp. “It’s silly,” he said, self-abasement already curling sour in the pit of his stomach. “It really is.”

Tyki’s hand settled over his, pulled them away from the flour and urged Link to face him once more. “It isn’t,” he corrected, lips pitched in a kind smile, shepherding Link’s determinedly busy hands between his own. “You can tell me.”

“I just… thought,” he murmured, pulled his hands away from Tyki’s, his skin cold. Shudders were creeping between his shoulders, his mind in a fogged-up haze from his own nerves. A stupid confession that made him feel somewhat short of breath. “Just once,” he said, eyes on their feet, taking notice, for once, of how close Tyki stood to him - and, absurdly, that he still had his shoes on. “I’d like to kiss someone,” he continued, fingers clenching nervously, “who actually cares about me.” Blood rushed in his ears, and he could feel his cheeks burning. “To cancel it out, maybe,” he said, staunchly avoiding having to look even in the vague direction of Tyki’s face. “Replace memories,” he said just to fill the silence. Pinched his lip almost painfully between his teeth. “To have a new first.”

“Would you like to kiss me, Howard?” Tyki murmured to the way Link’s words were failing him. He made no move to put distance between them, or to close what little remained.

“I’d just,” he mumbled, fingers curled tighter and tighter, “like to see. What it’s like.”

“Would you like  _ me  _ to kiss  _ you?”  _ he asked next, specific emphasis on who would do the doing. Link almost felt dizzy from the force of his blush, from the shortness of his breaths. He’d lost his tongue, somewhere in the mess of it. “I need an answer, Link,” Tyki murmured, warm fingertips traced across Link’s cheek. The lightest possible touch. Link could easily have imagined he hadn’t felt it at all. “I won’t force this on you,” he promised, words so quiet and measured with gentility that Link could feel something building in his throat in response, “so I need to be certain it’s what you want.”

His tongue turned numb, Link stumbled over himself when he admitted, “If… that’s… something you want, then. Yes.” Embarrassment persisted in the blush on his cheeks and his heart felt all tangled up in those brambles of nerves. “I do,” he admitted, immediately regretting the way his eyes couldn’t seem to help but flicker up to catch some hint of Tyki’s expression. Patient and soft with lovely indulgence. A quiet desire to do right by Link. “I do want it,” he said, words caught up in his throat with the surge of honesty that filled the sentiment. 

“Over here,” Tyki murmured, his hands taking Link’s in a gesture more encouragement than demand, and led him to sit on the long red chaise lounge half-huddled in the alcove beneath the stairs. 

Link sat by him, coiled tense with nerves, his pounding heart stuck in his throat, eyes locked on the way Tyki tangled their fingers together. 

He lifted Link’s chin with the barest touch of fingers to his jaw, one leg folded on the velour seat to properly face him. “You don’t have to,” Tyki reminded, voice quiet, once Link relented to look at him. 

“I want to,” he said - breathed, because he’d rather lost his voice. Even to his ears, it sounded like  _ I need to. _

He needed to. Needed to rid himself of the ghost of venomous lips pressed harsh and messy against his, of how it felt to have panic and disgust rattling in every breath, unable to stop until Neah let him stop, his only relief from the curse’s excruciating pain in kissing sick lips broken in a smile of childish ecstasy. 

He’d stolen something dear from Link, and Link would never get it back, but the least he could do was give it to someone else, by his own means, of his own will. Remove the vile sickness Neah had left in place of the kisses he’d taken.

“Please,” he said, fractured. 

Something settled in Tyki’s expression - some acknowledgement, or apologetic understanding. His fingers, lingering at Link’s jaw, smoothed across his cheek, thumb carefully tracing his face, and as Link’s heart shuddered and trembled in his throat, Tyki’s lips pressed soft and reassuring against Link’s, and he thought perhaps it wasn’t such a lie that the wizard Joyd was a villain who would make off with young boys’ hearts. 

He was nervous, and stayed tense, but his eyes fell closed of their own accord. Tyki’s lips lingered against his, slow and gentle as though he were afraid of pushing Link too far, of scaring him off, and after a long, tightly-wound moment his thumb brushed almost tenderly along the length of Link’s forefinger, where their fingers were twined on the red cushions, and he pulled away. 

He’d brought a warmth with him, Link realised in the seconds he let his eyes stay closed, indulging in a moment already passed. He brought a hand up, fingers pressed to his cold lips, as he opened his eyes. 

Tyki was watching him, face written with patience, a small smile sitting in the corners of his lips when he asked, “Are you okay?”

“Yes,” Link said, a somewhat nervous laugh tumbling out with the word as he pressed his fingers instead to his still-warm cheek. “Sorry,” he added, abashed, shy eyes darting away. “I don’t really know… how…”

Tyki’s laugh was quiet and kind and sounded as though it was made just for Link. “If you like,” he offered, thumb tracing a slow, indulgent path back down Link’s finger, “I could show you.”

Link pressed his hand firmer to his cheek, all but covering his face, and mumbled through his embarrassment, “I don’t want to ask for more.”

“You’re not asking,” Tyki reminded, the slow brush of his thumb remarkably distracting for such a simple touch. “I’m offering.” He hazarded a glance through his fringe, and found an amused smile tugging at Tyki’s lips. “You don’t have to,” he allowed, simple and reasonable, “if you don’t want to.”

“I do,” Link corrected, too quickly from the way that amusement creased the corners of Tyki’s eyes. “I just,” he hesitated, blush persisting,  _ “really  _ don’t know how. That was my first - real - kiss,” he reminded.

“We can do better than that,” he challenged, his certainty understated and subversive of Link’s embarrassment. 

Link only managed to say  _ yes, please  _ in the way he dropped his hand from his cheek and turned to more securely face Tyki on the lounge. Tyki understood his speechlessness, if the way he leaned in to kiss Link again said anything about it. 

It was wonderful. It was wonderful. For such a sharp tongue, he had incredibly soft lips. Link decided then and there that he rather liked being kissed by them. 

Slowly, like the pull of the tide, Tyki’s lips moved against his. Dragging him in without a word, deeper and deeper. Link was all to aware of the way Tyki’s fingers slid back to curl into his hair, of the way his thumb traced against Link’s forefinger in a slow pace of reassurance even as his mouth followed the subtle push and pull of Tyki’s. 

Tyki pulled away a bare moment and pulled in a breath, Link helplessly chasing after his kiss so when they met again, Tyki’s head tilted for a much,  _ much  _ better angle, his laugh was a subdued rumble burred against Link’s skin. He wasn’t entirely sure what to do with his hands, but as Tyki’s lips parted against his, he found it was almost instinct to tangle his fingers in the collar of Tyki’s shirt, hand against his chest. To have Tyki distracted with kissing him, Link indulged his imagination to the desire to trace the line of his collarbone, to drag his fingers carefully over the slope of his shoulder. To the warm slide of Tyki’s tongue brushing against Link’s lip, he drew a sharp breath in, fingers curled tight into the collar of Tyki’s shirt. His body locked still, hardly daring to breathe. Not sure, exactly, what that surge of something was, or how to make it happen again. 

Tyki’s lips parted from his but neither pulled away, breaths lingering between them. Link’s eyes slid open, narrow, lids heavy, and all he could see through his lashes was the slope of Tyki’s neck, the stray locks of hair curling at his nape, the way his dark skin disappeared beneath the collar tangled in Link’s fist. Fingers less than a breath from touching him. Really, properly touching him.

“Okay?” Tyki murmured, and Link could almost taste Tyki’s voice on his tongue. 

He nodded, quite unable to find his words, and lifted his chin, tilted his head invitingly so Tyki might kiss him again, and again and again and again until Link figured out how to kiss him back. 

Every time they met there was less trepidation, less caution, and the next time Tyki’s lips parted for his teeth to tease at Link’s lip there was no startled panic to make him freeze. When that something came loose from his chest Link unravelled with it, a pleased sigh falling out of him as he pressed closer to Tyki, all but melted against his chest. 

Tyki’s hand slipped free of Link’s and his fingers trailed up Link’s arm to rest between his shoulders, hold him closer, closer, his fingers tangled in Link’s hair to show him just how to angle himself so they might fall together like puzzle pieces. Simple and effortless and so perfectly, perfectly satisfying. 

His free hand traced shy fingers against the warm nape of Tyki’s neck and Link could hardly remember when their kiss had been chaste because every way Tyki’s lips moved against his and every way Tyki held him and every way Tyki shifted subtle and deep to the way Link’s fingers trailed across his skin, he couldn’t imagine his mild satisfaction if he had settled for less. 

Link’s lips worked clumsily against Tyki’s, gradually, accidentally turning deeper and deeper. The moment Tyki pushed Link down against the couch, licking into his mouth, Link realised what that something was when it settled like heat in the pit of his stomach, abdomen curling tight around it. God, but the way Tyki kissed him, Link couldn’t help it. Tyki’s hand tangled in his hair was unlike anything he’d ever felt, and Tyki’s tongue sliding against his was unlike anything he’d ever imagined and Link was gasping sweet breaths against his mouth, hands grasping blindly at his back, his touch insatiably hungry for the tease of skin he found from the way Tyki’s shirt had slipped to bare the small of his back.

Neah may have stolen Link’s first kiss - harsh, forceful, dry lips pressed clumsy and jagged together - but he’d never kissed Link like this. Never ever. All in a moment, Link imagined he’d never kiss anyone the way he was fumbling through kissing Tyki. He didn’t want to. Tyki’s tongue rolling slick against his, he couldn’t even imagine wanting to stop - let alone trying with anyone else. 

Tyki’s arm was curled beneath Link’s back, hand dragging down his spine, and Link’s body arched against Tyki’s at the meandering touch, breaths panted and caught against Tyki’s lips, absolutely thrilled with how Tyki pressed against him in answer, his body warm and firm and  _ tangible.  _ Honest, certain reality written in the way his fingers tightened in Link’s hair, in the way his hips pressed like an encouraging sort of reprimand against Link’s, in the way his teeth caught like a playful threat, or perhaps a promise, on Link’s tongue, his lip. 

They were kissing, they were kissing, and Link had never been kissed before, and he’d always been saving it for someone special, and he wasn’t sure if he wanted to believe that Tyki was his someone, but as far as first kisses went Link wasn’t sure there was anyone he’d have been better off asking. 

Tyki’s wandering hand found Link’s ass, and Link’s hips canted into the touch, a heady, pleased sigh caught on a quiet sound in his throat that breathed from his mouth to Tyki’s. Something of an answer rumbled quiet satisfaction in Tyki’s chest, and Link’s eyes squeezed closed at Tyki’s indulgence, his hands dragging hungry  _ yesyesyes  _ up Tyki’s back, following the dip of his spine, fingers dug into the shift of Tyki’s shoulders beneath his shirt. 

His greedy touch groped at Link through his pants, kneading a handful of Link’s ass just for the thrill of it, just to see how he felt, just to have Link rock his hips needy and desperate and  _ please please please  _ against the knee Tyki had planted between his thighs. Link’s legs clamped tight around Tyki’s, arousal in the pit of his stomach swirling hot and loose, and with Tyki’s hand squeezing his ass and his fingers in Link’s hair, all he could do was gasp ragged breaths against Tyki’s lips as he ground against his thigh. 

Tyki, almost on instinct, it seemed, rolled his hips down to meet Link’s. Pinned him down with his body, caught him between the godly satisfaction of his hand and the heavy heat of his hard-on against Link’s hip. 

He was hard. He was  _ hard.  _ Lips and teeth nipping at the corner of Link’s jaw, his fingers dug against Tyki’s back when he fully, properly  _ realised  _ that. 

Tyki was hard because of Link. 

It was a thrilling, empowering, somewhat intimidating feeling that surged through him, then. Satisfaction and excitement and something he really, really couldn’t describe that had him shifting his leg, canting his hips to press against Tyki’s arousal, his kiss-bruised lip caught between his teeth. 

Something happened in that moment, and Link wasn’t entirely sure what it was. 

Tyki’s breath seemed to catch and stop and his body locked around Link’s, gone cold with a sudden, chilling realisation as the pieces of what they were doing fell into place for him. He pulled his hand from Link’s ass, tilted his hips away from Link’s, and breathed an unsteady laugh across Link’s collarbones. 

Link didn’t dare move, breaths passing quick and quiet from his lips as though hoping if he were still enough and silent enough, Tyki might think against pulling away. 

Voice low and rough, lips barely brushing against Link’s neck, he felt more than heard Tyki murmur, “We should probably stop here, huh?” with another breathless laugh. 

Link swallowed thickly, curled his fingers against his palms at Tyki’s warm back, embarrassment creeping back in. “We don’t have to,” he suggested, voice quiet and unsteady. Timid, trying to be coy and completely missing the mark. Too nervous with even the thought of it to be truly convincing.

Tyki’s fingers softened in Link’s hair and he raised himself on his elbow to look down at him. Link had no idea how he might look, right then. Hair ruffled, messy. Cheeks red, lips redder. Kiss-biten. Eyes wide, scared of his own hopefulness. That was how he felt. 

Something in Tyki’s painfully put-together expression told Link it wasn’t the easiest thing he’d ever done to give a small, tight smile and shake his head. No. 

Link’s legs unwound, fell apart, spread a little like a quiet invitation, a breath caught in his throat. 

All Tyki took it as was invitation to press a lingering kiss to the corner of Link’s expectant lips and push away to sit up. “We do,” he countered, firm. Almost apologetic. 

Something swelled in Link’s chest - some panicked loss. He wanted something, but he had no idea what it was and found from the chill settling into his fingertips that he might even be a little scared of it. 

He wasn’t sure, when Tyki pulled away, if what he felt was disappointment or relief.

Either way, it certainly didn’t help his embarrassment at the situation. Unsure all over again with what to do with his hands now that Tyki was out of reach and had a staunch look of reluctant certainty about him, Link dropped his head back against the cushions and dragged them up his red cheeks, pretended he wasn’t covering his face. 

The position they were in was a perfect portrait of what had just happened - from ten minutes ago to ten seconds ago. One of Link’s legs hanging off the edge of the couch, Tyki sitting up not-quite between them, dragging a hand through his tousled hair as though to reassert some sense of what he  _ should  _ be doing.

A painting with a gold plaque beneath reading  _ The Art of Getting Carried Away,  _ or perhaps  _ Bad Decisions Half-Made. _

“Look,” Tyki started, and then stopped with a sharp, weighty sigh. After a brief moment he seemed to think better of saying anything at all and simply pushed up to stand, gave Link a tight, apologetic smile, and reached out a hand without so much as a thought to ruffle Link’s hair as he stepped past to move to his workbench and studiously set about doing something or other which must have been exponentially more important than an explanation, or perhaps even the simple words  _ sorry, but no. _

No, no.

Instead what Link got was a fake smile and a gesture that emitted such a feeling of  _ sorry, kid  _ that Link wasn’t sure if he was more embarrassed or furious. 

What did he expect. It was, after all,  _ Tyki  _ who he’d been kissing. 

After a requisite moment to collect himself, Link stood himself up, brushed himself off, set his lips in a stern, immovable line, and went to finish packing away the abandoned groceries with a mixed contradiction of fury and longing prickling into an awful frustration beneath his skin. 

 

* * *

 

A hefty silence settled in the castle over the hours following Tyki’s mistake of forgetting that in kissing Link he’d been kissing  _ Link -  _ and everything that entailed. Muffled tension settled like dust in the floorboards, hung itself like cobwebs across the furnishings, and the only sounds were the mumbled crackle of Allen pointedly gnawing through his logs, the scratch of Tyki’s pencil across the page, and the absent bustle of Link tinkering in the kitchen. 

Tyki was very much filled with the impression that Link, more than anything, wanted to storm out in a huff - and perhaps even slam the door behind him. Tyki thought it was a mighty shame he couldn’t. Then, at least, some of the awkward silence might alleviate and Link might have some privacy to work through whatever frustrations he was building up into fortresses in his mind. 

Also, Tyki might be a little less distracted from his work. 

It was decidedly a problem, the way he found himself over and again stealing glances at Link, aggressively busy in the kitchen. Watching his profile, or the line of his neck. Eyes following the sway of his braid down his back, settling on his ass. 

Definitely not where his attention should be, after a show like that. 

But, objectively, it was a great ass. Cute. Pert. Experience told him it was very soft and fun to squeeze. He’d never really taken the time to admire it before. 

He kept having to roll his eyes at himself when he caught his thoughts rolling down that path, and diverted his attention to the charm he was meant to be working on. Preferably before Link noticed his stare and demanded an explanation which Tyki didn’t have as to why he felt he had any right to admire Link’s ass mere hours after callously turning him down and igniting this rather intimidating fury in him.

Sleazy asshole. He shouldn’t even be thinking about it. When Tyki said no he meant  _ no  _ and he wasn’t about to let a kiss and a bit of frottage get in the way of the very nice, comfortable, homely dynamic he and Link had managed to build around their cohabitation. 

Unfortunate, but true. 

Because, well. Who was to say a new dynamic wouldn’t be nice? One where Tyki got to kiss Link and Link got to look at him with those come-hither eyes and Tyki would be allowed to squeeze his ass and Link would be allowed to run his hands indulgently up the back of Tyki’s shirt because he’d clearly been very interested in doing  _ that  _ and Tyki was definitely not looking at his ass again and definitely not thinking about how much he wanted to touch it.

The potential for that to make things much more awkward than they already were was, put simply, limitless.

Absolutely not. Tyki was not about to stumble over himself to take a pretty boy’s  _ virginity  _ just because he had a cute smile and a nice ass. A very good, round bum. Definitely not.

Breathing a sharp, quiet huff at his inability to follow his own simple orders of  _ stop looking at your virgin client’s ass,  _ Tyki turned back to his work and dipped his head to rest his brow on his hand, fingers strategically placed to obscure any view of the kitchen, and set himself to work.

He only realised he’d managed to forget about his unfortunate distraction, hand moved to studiously holding his hair out of his face, when Link shoved a plate onto the workbench by his elbow and stalked off without a word.

Tyki glanced after him, surprised, wrenched from his focus, and then down at the plate Link had left. Lemon meringue pie. 

Unasked questions breathed out of him on a quiet, disappointed sigh and he dropped his hand from his brow. “Link,” he started, turning in his seat to find Link settling himself at the table.

“Don’t,” Link bit out, crisp, without looking Tyki’s way.

“Thank you,” Tyki challenged, forceful, picking up his plate and moving to join Link at the table, pulling out his seat with something of a glare. “You don’t like baking much anymore, do you,” he reminded, voice softening.

His words short and clipped, he didn’t look up from his plate as he sliced the tip of his piece off with a fork when he said, “I don’t want you to thank me for it.”

“What do you want, then?” Tyki countered, hands clasped on the table. 

Link’s lips seemed to twist for a moment before he forcibly settled his expression back to stone-cut stoicism. Words carefully enunciated, he said, “More than petty condescension,” as he jabbed his fork into the piece he’d cut, the lovely crust crumbling apart at the forceful touch. 

Tyki’s brows flickered into a frown, lips set in dissatisfaction, and he demanded, “Do you think I’m trying to condescend you?” 

“Whether you’re trying to or not,” Link bit out, a glare flickering up to match Tyki’s scowl, “you’re certainly succeeding.”

“This is about the kiss, right?” Tyki felt the need to clarify.

Link’s glare sharpened and he corrected, “It’s about how it ended.”

Tyki dipped his head, scoffed a sigh breathed on an incredulous sort of laugh and passed his fingers over his brow, demanding, “Are you actually upset because I won’t  _ fuck  _ you?”

Link pressed his fork to the table and said, words cutting with reigned-in frustration, “You’re perfectly capable of telling me you don’t want me without treating me like a precocious child.”

“You’re a grown man, Link,” Tyki said, falsely sweet, falsely placating. “You can make your own decisions. But trust me when I say that wanting anything to do with me,” he continued, voice slowly escalating past a tone of pleasantry to toe the line of absurd outrage, “is a _ bad idea.” _

_ “Why did you kiss me, then?”  _ Link demanded, that frustration snapping through his control - the first time Tyki had heard him raise his voice. 

“Why did you ask?” Tyki countered, spite prickling at his tongue, rising to the cadence of Link’s anger, sardonic mockery snapping to outrage. 

Link paused, hesitated. Confusion dipped between his brows and his lips stood parted, looking for all the world as though the only answer he could think of was an honest one. “Because,” he said, slow, subdued, each word chosen with care and spoken almost reluctantly, his expression written as though he couldn’t believe Tyki didn’t  _ know,  _ “I trust you.”

“Trust me on this, then,” Tyki said, forcibly subdued, the certainty of a man cornered written into every word. “I make mistakes,” he stated, scowl unrelenting from Link’s bafflement. “And that was one of them.”

Link didn’t say anything. Eyes on his plate, hands in his lap, he looked as though he wasn’t sure if he was angry or upset. Looked as though he was biting his tongue, and yet had nothing to say.

Tyki breathed a sigh, quiet, let the heat fall out of him. Couldn’t quite manage to dispel the tension roiling through him, caught in every breath. Without glancing at the pie Link had baked - for  _ him,  _ for a damned fool - he stood and went to pick up the charm he’d been crafting at his workbench. “I won’t be home tonight,” he said, curt, bounced it on his palm once before placing it almost too forcefully on the table by Link’s plate. “So, if you want, just. Hold it in your hand when you go to sleep. You won’t have any dreams,” he explained, subdued, already making for the door.

“Where are you going?” Link demanded, turning in his seat to watch Tyki go with hurt, accusatory eyes. 

Tyki shrugged, opened the black door without bothering to pull his shoes on. “I might be back tomorrow,” was all he said, stepping through, “or later.”

Door closed behind him, Tyki wasn’t of a mood to linger in the silent grandeur of the Hallway. Without bothering to take a single step he crafted a doorknob in his hand and stepped from Ingary to Portugal, hardly a breath in transit. 

He closed his closet door behind him, slumped against it, and brought a hand up to pinch at the bridge of his nose. How absolutely fucking ridiculously easy was it for him to turn a good thing bad. All it took was a sharp tongue, a misplaced word and a proclivity for avoidance. 

Drawing in a deep breath and pushing himself upright only so he could fall onto his bed, freshly made with clean linen because Tricia was an  _ angel,  _ Tyki rationalised that they would likely only benefit from a night out of each other’s way. Link couldn’t exactly remove himself, so really, that left it down to Tyki. And possibly - likely - he was only rationalising his own petty frustrations. 

But if he stayed there with Link demanding an apology and cooking lemon meringue with the memory of his tongue fumbling against Tyki’s, then Tyki was all too likely to do something stupid. Like kiss him. Again. 

Not that he could even enjoy the memory of kissing Link, what with everything that came with it. Every time he thought about it - about heated words and cold silence and stupidly -  _ stupidly -  _ turning Link down with a pat to his head like he was some dumb kid, all the warmth and simple satisfaction of it fell apart at the seams. Stupid stupid stupid.  _ Stupid. _

Because Link wasn’t wrong. He wasn’t. Tyki was just too stubborn in his worthless pride to admit it.

He  _ wanted  _ to kiss Link. He did. He wanted it as much as he didn’t want anything that came with it. The expectation and confusion and bitterness and offence. He’d enjoyed kissing him. It had been thrilling, pleasing, endlessly satisfying to feel Link stumble through the motions, to feel his tentative nerves cave against Tyki’s lips for that familiar determination, earnest boldness. 

It begged the question, then, what was Link to him? Really. What could anyone be, to someone without a heart?

A prize, Tyki considered with a hand placed thoughtlessly over the empty cavity of his chest, or a challenge, or happenstance.

Link was, in different ways, all those things. His happenstance had brought with it a challenge, and conquering it would be Tyki’s prize. And what the fuck did  _ kissing  _ him have to do with it.

Clearly Tyki wanted to kiss him. And in that moment, feeling Link grind against him - feeling his arousal and seeing that gorgeous, enticing look on his face, bitten lips and wide eyes, Tyki couldn’t deny that he had wanted to fuck him.

That in itself though had little enough to do with _Link,_ though. Only to the fact he was pretty and willing. That wasn’t about Link. That was about Tyki’s low-bar standards which only _amounted_ to pretty and willing.

Wanting to fuck a pretty, willing man who happened to be Howard Link was a world away from wanting to fuck Howard Link who happened to be a pretty, willing man. And pretty, willing Howard Link did not deserve to lose his virginity to someone who had to parse his attraction into that sort of venn diagram.

In a huff, Tyki rolled onto his back again. He’d go downstairs in a moment. In a minute. Right then, right then, what he needed was to be a world away with the lofty smell of Tricia’s fabric softener and a moment, just a moment, of blessed peace. 

He was roused from the warmth of his dozing half-nap by a long, shrill, seemingly endless scream. Tyki kept his eyes closed, pretending to sleep through it like only a dead man could.

It stopped as quickly as it had started, and Tyki cracked his eyes open. “What?” he demanded of the fourteen-year-old girl standing in his open door. 

“Why are you in my house?” Road demanded, shrill with petty offence.

“I live here,” Tyki grumbled without moving, more than half a lie. “Why are you in my room?” he countered.

“I was looking for my book,” she answered with a pretty, severe scowl. “Why is your hand down your pants?” she challenged.

“ ‘s comfortable,” Tyki mumbled, only realising then that his hand was in his pants and it was, admittedly, very comfortable, but drawing it out regardless. “Where’s Sheryl?” he asked.

“Out,” Road shrugged, “with Tricia. Want to do shots?”

“It’s just past lunch,” Tyki reminded, giving her an obscure, confused sort of frown. Road arched a brow at him, and mouthed the word  _ pussy.  _ With a roll of his eyes he pushed himself to sit up and muttered, rubbing a hand across his brow, “Thought you’d never ask.”

Road, it turned out, didn’t have the key to the liquor cupboard. The only thing that had stopped her from breaking the glass was that last time she’d tried Sheryl had been so distraught at the thought of his precious angel turning into a drunken delinquent like her uncle that he’d moved her to a bigger, fancier, stricter private school. Not that she had any friends to leave behind, but it wasn’t easy to work her way back to the top of the pecking order.

“Knew you’d come around sooner or later,” she shrugged, leaning against the side of the cabinet, “and you’re good with locks. Especially if there’s alcohol on the other side.”

“Funny,” Tyki remarked, dry. “Go get some cups.” 

She rolled her eyes and shrugged away with a huff. Tyki rolled his eyes in mocking answer and pressed his hand to the cabinet door. Magic was all the same worlds over, and it was a simple thing to release the mechanism and unlock the door. By the time Road got back, he was pulling tequila, jager and Sheryl’s favourite spiced brandy from the top shelf, two bottles under his arm and the other hanging from its neck between his fingers.

Road went straight for the raspberry vodka, and Tyki snatched it out of her hand and put it back on the shelf. 

“What the fuck?” she demanded, impetuous, and went to swipe it again. 

_ “Don’t,”  _ Tyki snapped, kicking the back of her knee so she stumbled and smacked at his chest with a sharp fist in retaliation. “Tricia loves that shit.”

“So?” Road prodded, mocking and sarcastic.

“So, she’s a lovely woman who deserves her fucking raspberry vodka,” Tyki snipped, taking one more bottle and closing the door, letting the lock fall closed on the latch as he did. “Take this,” he suggested, holding out Sheryl’s Pimms instead.

“You’re a shitty friend,” Road scowled, snatching the bottle from his hand. “You know that?”

“I’m not your friend,” Tyki reminded, taking one of the glasses from Road’s hand and setting his goods on the spindly little marble-top whiskey bench beside the cabinet to pour himself some brandy.

“And I’m not your therapist,” Road countered, sweet as sin, “but guess where this is gonna leave us.”

“I don’t need therapy,” Tyki sniffed, taking a sip of the rich liquor.

Road snorted a laugh and flicked the cap off the Pimms, poured it into her glass and challenged, “Why else would you be here?”

Tyki pulled in a deep breath and cast her a sweet, pleasant smile. “How’s school?” he asked, the image of saintly uncle-ness.

“Ask someone who goes,” Road scoffed turning on her heel to make for the projector room or whatever the fuck they wanted to call it. 

“I’m asking you, aren’t I?” Tyki countered, bland, trailing after her with the bottle in one hand and his glass in the other.

“I don’t go,” Road answered, simple and mocking.

Tyki scoffed a condescending sort of laugh and muttered, “Bullshit you don’t.”

_ “You  _ never went to school,” she challenged, shooting a scowl over her shoulder.

Well, not so much in Portugal, it was true. But he’d found much more interesting things to dedicate himself to studying. “Yeah,” he scoffed, because he couldn’t exactly say  _ actually, I spent ten years under the tutelage of Ingary’s finest and only got expelled when they found out I’d sold my heart to a fire demon,  _ “and look where it got me. Still living with my shitass brother.”

“Barely,” Road muttered into her glass. 

Grandiose, Tyki sighed, “I’d be flattered to think you want to see more of me, but we both know that’s not true.”

“I only like you because whenever you want to talk about something you get drunk and teach me how to mix cocktails,” she admitted, plain and simple. “So,” she challenged, stooping to rummage through the mini fridge for packets of skittles and gummy snakes, “Why are you here?”

“Marital issues,” Tyki said, falling deep into one of the kick-out lounges.

Road snorted an ugly laugh at that, her whole pretty face crumpling up into a nasty snicker. “That'll be the day,” she snarked, a statement which in all honesty Tyki had no standing argument to. 

“There's a guy living at my house,” he started, and almost got a whole sentence out before being interrupted. 

Incredulous, Road demanded, “And you  _ haven't  _ used and abused him into leaving yet?”

“That's the problem,” Tyki admitted, letting his head fall back against the sofa. “I think I just did.”

“Predictable,” Road sang, prancing to the seat by Tyki’s with her spoils. 

“I had no intentions of having sex with him but then he said he wanted to have sex with me and I said no and here I am,” he summarised, brief and mostly true. Something like guilt pricked at the thought of summing Howard Link down to someone who wanted to have sex with him. There were plenty of those, and only one Link, and the jury was still out on if that was even an actual option either one of them had put on the table. 

Sure Link had implied that he would be okay with the idea of Tyki wanting to have sex with him, but that was a world away from saying _I want to have sex with you._ But the complexities of Howard Link would no doubt be lost on Road, and Tyki had no intention of trying to explain them to her. He would get defensive, and before long she would be asking why he cared. 

Frankly, he wasn't sure he had an answer. 

“You said no?” Road repeated, as though figuring she hadn't heard right.  _ “You  _ did?”

“Ha,” Tyki mocked a sarcastic laugh, “funny. Yes, I said no. He's  _ young,”  _ he reasoned, sullen, sinking deeper into his chair, “and a virgin, and I don't actually want to ruin his life.” That, at least, was the honest truth. 

“How young?” Road asked, tearing open her pack of gummy snakes and ripping the head off one with her nasty little teeth. “Want me to call the cops?”

“Fuck off,” Tyki snapped, smacking at the open bag to make her yelp and send a few snakes flying to be lost in the dark room. “Nineteen.”

“What,” she snorted, mocking, and reached for the remote to turn on the projector and pull up Sheryl's Netflix, “nineteen and never been kissed?”

“Something like that,” Tyki muttered, sour. He could already feel himself getting prickly with defensiveness. Stupid. What did he have to defend. Road hummed like she was considering something and he demanded, “What?”

“I was gonna say,” she hummed, “doesn't seem like your type, but. You'd fuck anything with a pulse.”

“Come on,” Tyki rebutted, digging through the bag in her hand, despite the way she kicked and slapped at him, for a handful of snakes. “Any  _ attractive _ thing with a pulse,” he corrected. 

“Saying you'd fuck an alien?” Road prodded. 

“A hot alien?” Tyki hazarded. “Yeah.”

_ “OH!”  _ she announced, smacking him forcefully in the chest and quickly typing something into Netflix. “New season of Voltron came out. You're gonna have a boner for Keith's mom.”

Tyki brought his drink to his lips, a weary sigh breathed into his cup. “Your mindless obsession for these vapid shows never ceases to amaze me.”

“Shut up,” she snapped, already selecting the tab. “Do you want to watch the sexy aliens fight a space war or not?”

“I'd say no and you'd still make me,” he reasoned as it came up on the screen, face set into stoic boredom for something that was sure to be absolutely riveting once he was piss drunk.

 

* * *

 

In getting piss drunk, Tyki found himself, rather than deeply invested in what Lotor’s game was and who Lance was meant to be fucking, ushering Road to pause the show and waving her to the kitchen. 

“Boil the kettle,” he commanded, heading back to the cabinet himself for Sheryl’s best whiskey.

“Why?” Road muttered, sour, but Tyki heard her comply nonetheless.

“Because,” he announced, digging sugar and bitters from the kitchen cupboard and an orange from the bowl on the bench, “I like my whiskey like I like my men.”

Road paused for a moment. “Pretty?” she hazarded.

“Old fashioned,” Tyki corrected, digging out a knife to cut a couple of twists from the orange peel. 

She laughed at that. “Right,” she mocked, not believing a word.

“The two aren’t mutually exclusive,” Tyki reasoned, dropping half a spoon of sugar in each cup and adding a splash of boiled water to dissolve it before stirring in the bitters, Road watching attentively at his elbow. “And Link, as it happens, is very pretty and  _ very  _ old fashioned.”

“I thought you said you didn’t want to have sex with him,” Road remarked.

“I said I didn’t  _ end up  _ having sex with him,” Tyki corrected, pouring in the whiskey, pulling his lighter from his pocket and searing the twist before curling it into the glass. “I certainly enjoyed kissing him. Here’s the best part,” he added, slicing another piece from the orange rind, running the flame over it, and holding it over the top of the glass. With Road leaning her elbows on the bench beside him, Tyki pinched the cut of rind so the spritz diffused from the peel and caught on the flame of his lighter, setting off a flare when the spark of it combusted the whiskey fumes.

_ “Oooo!”  _ she cooed, thrilled with the pyromania, and Tyki passed her the lighter so he could cut a fresh piece of rind for her to try. 

It sparked and hissed and caught alight with something of a pop, and she squealed and giggled in ecstatic joy. A true budding psychopath. Tyki was something like proud.

“And, you know,” he was saying some time later, munching on snakes and sipping his whiskey as he leaned against the counter, Road sitting up on the benchtop beside him, “we’re in such close quarters, all the time.”

“Getting claustrophobic?” she teased, clearly mocking him.

“Not really,” he defended. “Maybe. What’s it called when you’re claustrophobic over not fucking someone?” he asked, but she only shrugged, completely uninvested in his issues. “Because it’s like, every second I’m not fucking him is a second wasted, and I’ve wasted  _ months.” _

“Soooooo,” she drawled out, taking a deep chug of a drink that was designed to be sipped, “why aren’t you fucking the virgin? Beyond the obvious,” she added.

“Because it’s complicated,” he sighed, long and weary and full of regret.

“Does that mean you’re going to run off?” she asked.

A frown pinched at Tyki’s brows and he shot her a confused look. “What?”

“That’s what you do, right?” she prodded. “Every time things get  _ complicated,”  _ she mocked, utterly sarcastic, “you just ditch and drop off the face of the earth.”

“What makes you say that?” Tyki demanded, his frown turning into a defensive sort of scowl. 

Road arched her brows down at him, imperious condescension. He was sort of getting what Link meant, about being talked down to. It fucking sucked. “Apart from the fact you’ve never once been in a steady relationship and all your fuckfriends last a month at most?” she prompted. “I have a whole list.”

“I am just so glad,” Tyki mocked, voice dripping with sarcasm, “that you are keeping tabs on my-”

“Emotional unavailability,” she supplied, prim.

“Sex life,” he corrected, scowling. 

“See,” she laughed, “you can’t even call it a personal life because you’re so fucking impersonal. You wanna know what I think?” she offered.

“No,” Tyki muttered into his glass, knowing she would tell him either way.

“I think you jerked off to too much porn when you were a kid,” she announced, light and unconcerned, “and now you can’t form meaningful connections with people.”

“I can assure you,” he corrected with a sweet smile, “that’s not what’s wrong with me.”

“Right,” she snorted, unconvinced. “Tell that to your browser history.”

Loftily, Tyki said, “I’ll have you know I haven’t jerked off on my own in at least three years.”

“Jesus Christ,” she muttered, the look on her face bordering on disgust.

“See,” he reasoned, “whenever I’m horny, I go and get laid. That simple.”

“Just have a wank,” she groaned, rolling her head back with the propulsive force of her eyes. “That’s so much fucking effort.”

“Not if you’re me,” he reasoned.

“Gee,” she muttered, throwing back more of her drink, “thanks for the pro tip.”

Tyki knew with certainty that he would reach a point in his drunkenness where all this talk about sex and Link would make him want to go home and ravish him - and, even worse, actually think it was a good idea. He also knew that point was fast approaching.

So, in order to circumvent that, he threw back the rest of his old fashioned, hefted the tequila onto the bench and suggested, “Margaritas?” to Road’s enthusiastic agreement. 

The idea was that he wouldn’t be able to make bad drunken decisions if he couldn’t get off the floor.

Which, ultimately, was where he ended up.

In truth, halfway up the stairs to his bedroom. Somewhere in the loose, slurred, buzzing haze of his drunkenness he found he wasn’t sure if he’d been looking for his bed right there in Portugal, for Link, or for the red chaise lounge he usually ended up passing out on when he got that fucking drunk and actually managed to make it home.

But it didn’t seem to make much difference. The landing was, in truth, rather comfortable. 

It would have been more comfortable if he’d had Link there sleeping against his chest, but maybe it was for the best that he wasn’t. Maybe. Probably. Maybe. 

Either way, he didn’t remember passing out. Fucking eight hours of easing into tequila shots with Road would do it to anyone. What he woke up to, though, was less than pleasant - even on a day when he knew which way was up and which was down and didn’t have the edge of a stair digging into the side of his head. 

“Tricia’s making pancakes,” was the announcement. Which, in and of itself, was the furthest thing from a bad thing that anyone could comprehend.

The bad part was that it wasn’t Tricia saying it, or even Road. 

Sheryl loomed over him, looking absolutely, incomparably disappointed. Well, it was an odd mixture of disappointment and disgust just brimming with contempt. 

Lovely.

Tyki blinked blearily up at his brother and wondered firstly if he wanted to say anything and then, briefly, if he  _ could  _ through the cottony dryness of his mouth. “Oh,” he managed to grumble out, voice rough and ragged, “good.”

Sheryl arched a brow down at him. “Do you want some?” he prompted for an actual legitimate response. 

Tyki groaned long and low as he considered that, shifting to gingerly lay on his back so the stairs would be cutting into his neck instead. “Yes and no,” he answered at length, his brain still too loose and fuzzy to truly comprehend the conversation Sheryl was trying to have with him. 

Even on the best of days, Tyki had more than enough trouble talking around his brother’s  _ expectations.  _ How awful. He should have crawled up those stairs on his hands and knees - even if he’d had to throw up on his bedroom floor, if it meant making it as far as the Hallway so this encounter might never have had to happen it most certainly would have been worth the effort. 

“Yes  _ or  _ no,” Sheryl demanded, short with impatience. Like this fucker had never been hungover in his life.

He probably hadn’t.

“Nnnnnnnnn,” Tyki slurred, eyes squinting narrow as he evaluated the state of his stomach and how pancakes might affect the fragile ecosystem before settling on, “nnnnnnyes. Yes. Pancakes sounds… wonderful.” 

It sounded alright, at best.

Sheryl was not entirely amused. “Would you like to  _ join  _ us for breakfast?” he prompted, still with that look of hideous superiority. “Or should I have them mailed to Tyki Mikk, drunken idiot on the stairs.”

With another lengthy, pained groan Tyki let his head drop quietly, softly, gently back onto the step and closed his eyes. “Either is good,” he mumbled.

He heard Sheryl turn to leave, ugly condescension prickling at the last reserves of Tyki’s energy to make for a nice cocktail of exhaustion, drunkenness and irritation. “Get down to the kitchen,” he commanded, crisp, “or you’re not getting any.”

Tyki breathed a long sigh deep into his lungs and blinked up at the sarcastically white cornice mouldings of the ceiling. “I hate this fucking family,” he told them.

They didn’t say anything back, which was just. Classic disappointment from the Camelot household.

It took a few minutes to gather up the strength and willpower both for Tyki to to pick himself off the floor, and he leaned heavily against the wall as he contemplated the stairs he would have to go down. Hm. 

Well, nothing ventured nothing gained. 

Keeping a steadying hand against the wall, he started the awful endeavor of walking down to the kitchen. It was not easy. In fact, it was rather difficult. Every time he closed his eyes he wondered if he might just fall asleep on his feet and tumble down the rest of the way.

Rather uneventful, though, he made it to the kitchen where Sheryl was fixing himself a glass of chilled white wine and Tricia was piling the pancakes up with icing sugar and syrup, and Road was staunchly tearing up a paper napkin into a neat pile of destruction on the table.

Tyki sniffed and rubbed at his eyes, feeling incurably rundown, before greeting Tricia with a quick kiss on the cheek and dipping his finger into the dribbling maple. 

“Don’t pick,” she reprimanded, fondness laced through her words, and tapped the back of his hand to swat him away. 

“I adore you,” was all he could think of to say before turning to pull open the cupboard above the stovetop and rummage around for something orange and fizzy and hydrolyte-y. 

“Here,” she offered, pushing a glass of orange juice and champers in his direction. 

“I don’t know how any of you can look down on me for drinking,” he considered, dropping the tablet right into the drink, “when you so readily enable me.”

Sheryl sighed dainty disgust over his blanc, and Road huffed a sharp breath over her torn-up napkin to discard the mess she’d made and deposit it like an awful, messy snow cross the table. “I don’t want you influencing Road with your…” Sheryl trailed off, lip curling in something of a sneer when he finished, cold and nasty,  _ “debauchery.” _

Because, clearly, Tyki was the problem here. “She wasn’t even there,” he grumbled, settling into his place at the table. “Already sleeping like a little sadistic baby by the time I got in.”

“I wasn’t aware you had a fondness for Pimms,” Sheryl observed, unconvinced. 

“You think Road would be caught dead drinking  _ Pimms?”  _ Tyki countered, nose scrunching in exhausted disgust as Tricia came around to load up his plate, putting a pause on his pettiness to mouth  _ thank you  _ to her, for which she gave him a sweet smile. What a lovely woman. Sheryl was the last person on earth to deserve her. “Trust me,” he continued, picking up his knife and fork, “if she’d been there, you’d be all out of raspberry vodka.”

Road yawned, wide and obnoxious and pointedly thankless. Sheryl relented with something of a suspicious acquiescence. 

“Will you be staying again tonight?” Tricia asked as she rounded the table, filling everyone’s plates before sitting herself down. 

“Well,” Tyki considered, cutting into his pancakes, “let’s see. I can exist in painful discomfort here, or I can exist in excruciating discomfort elsewhere. And as much as I love your company,” he added, casting her a sweet smile, “I owe myself a very awkward dose of uncomfortable silence. So as soon as I’ve finished appreciating your cooking,” he continued, and took a moment to take a mouthful and give an appreciative groan, “which is unbeatable, by the way,” he flattered once he’d swallowed it down.

“Watch out,” Road muttered, poking sullenly at her plate, “you’ll get shit on your nose.”

Staunchly ignoring her, Tyki finished, “I should probably go and actively ignore the man I didn’t have sex with.”

Amidst Road’s impromptu coughing fit, Tyki caught the word  _ child. _

“The  _ legal adult,”  _ he corrected, forcefully pleasant, “who I made a  _ conscious decision  _ not to  _ fuck.” _

“None of that, please,” Sheryl sighed, completely uninterested in anything that was going on around him. 

“Yeah, Tyki,” Road mocked, shooting him a nasty grin. “None of that.”

Tyki held eye contact with her, making no effort to explain how much power he had over her right then for her to even try fucking with him. She was aware. Whether she chose to care or not was her prerogative. 

She flicked a strawberry at him. It missed. He sipped his mimosa. She shot him an awful, mocking sneer. 

“You’re seeing someone?” Tricia delicately encouraged, always willing to have a pleasant conversation.

“I’m trying my damndest not to,” Tyki corrected, turning back to his pancakes.

“This wouldn’t be that German fellow, would it?” she pressed, artfully unconcerned. Tyki hummed, dissatisfied. Most of the things he said around here, he said believing no one would care enough to remember him saying them. Which was often the case, and often reciprocated. Tricia was the epitome of invested companionship. It put him in a bit of a pickle, sometimes.

Tyki sipped his drink. “Yes,” he admitted carefully, setting his glass back on the table.

“You seemed very interested,” she commented, patience of a saint in the face of digging difficult honesty out of people. She paused to eat some of her breakfast, let Tyki wallow in that for a moment before asking, “What happened?”

“I thought better of it,” he said simply, not really an answer. 

“Bet he's too good for you,” Road offered. 

“Bet you should shut your prissy little mouth,” Tyki sneered back. 

“Make me,” she dared, spearing a whole pancake onto her fork and taking a clean bite out of it. “Bet you found a guy worth sticking around for and all he did was make you realise how shit a person you are and you couldn’t handle the reality of your commitment issues so you drove him away. Classic you, running off on anything you might end up caring about.”

_ “Road,”  _ Tricia reprimanded, short and sharp. 

_ “What?”  _ she snapped back, stabbing her fork deep into her pile of pancakes, nose wrinkled in a revolted sneer. “It’s true.”

Tyki glanced, offence surging, between Road and Sheryl - Sheryl, who said nothing and indeed didn’t seem to have anything to say. A disgusted glare levelled at his niece, Tyki demanded, “You’re seriously going to talk to her like that?”

“You’re seriously going to ignore the way I just ripped your balls off?” Road retorted, snide. “Why do you like Tricia so much?”

“Why don’t  _ you?”  _ Tyki countered, anger at her blithe disregard boiling over to burn hot in his blood, hands locked into fists. 

Voice curled into an ugly taunt, Road baited, “I’d probably need more fingers to count the ways she reminds you of  _ Link.” _

“Probably wouldn’t need to count on your fingers if you ever went to school,” Tyki snarled.

“Suck a dick,” Road spat, not so pretty when she was jabbing someone who held no reservations over hitting back.

_ “Road!”  _ Sheryl barked, and the frown wrinkling his brow read  _ watch your language  _ more than  _ you’ll wish you’d never skipped,  _ and that was just about all the patience Tyki had for the two of them.

“What?” Road whined, petty and wheedling. “Tyki said it first.”

Sheryl’s glare turned to him, and Tyki had to grit his teeth down on his tongue just to keep from doing something stupid, like punch him in his stupid face. 

He pulled in a deep, careful breath, steadied his outrage, and dropped his cutlery onto the table with a sweet, hateful smile. “You know,” he announced, standing from his seat, “breakfast was a lovely sentiment, but I think I’m going to have to pass,” he said as he strode around the table, a truly apologetic hand lingering on Tricia’s shoulder as he passed. “I’m taking your copy of Hans Christian,” he added for Road’s benefit, drawing away from the quiet reassurance of Tricia’s fingers brushing against his. “I know a fire with a fondness for literature.”

“Don’t burn my books, asshole!” Road cried after him.

“Don’t blame me for your foul attitude and maybe I won’t have to,” Tyki reasoned, making for the stairs with a lofty shrug.

_ “Dad?”  _ Road demanded of Sheryl, furious that he would just let Tyki get away with doing something shitty, as though he hadn’t been doing the same for her all her life.

“Tyki-” he started to reprimand, pithy and pathetic, without even bothering to get up from his seat.

“Suck a dick,” Tyki sneered, snapping open the door to Road’s room and making for her largely unused bookcase.

Through the door left ajar, he could hear the gentle murmur of Tricia’s voice urging Road to chase some kind of reconciliation. Tyki took his time scanning the shelf, never thinking for one second that Road would bother listening to her.

Which was why, essentially, he was caught out by the sound of reluctant footsteps and the sound of the latch closing. Hands dug deep in his pockets, he glanced over his shoulder to meet Road’s scowl.

“She wants me to  _ apologise,”  _ she muttered at great length, as though the words tasted foul and acrid in her mouth, and strode over to her bed to throw herself onto the covers, no apology forthcoming.

“We’re not very good at that,” Tyki admitted, a subdued murmur, and turned back to the books.

“I don’t get it,” she gritted behind him, heat and tension still roiling through her voice. “If you two are so fucking in love, why didn’t she marry  _ you?” _

Caving to the way genuine, honest confusion washed away his lingering anger, Tyki turned to face her, leaned back against the shelf. “What do you mean?” he asked, completely lost. 

Road snorted a nasty laugh and turned onto her back, head hanging off the end of her bed to pin him with an accusatory look. “It’s obvious,” she said. “She  _ cares  _ about you, and she’s the only person you’re actually nice to.”

“I’m not nice to her because I’m in love with her,” Tyki reprimanded, his frown deepening. “I’m nice to her because she deserves it.”

“You wouldn’t know,” she retorted. “You’re never here.”

Tyki arched an unconvinced brow and asked, “Are you trying to tell me that whenever I’m not here she turns into an evil witch?”

“She’s  _ nothing  _ when you’re not here,” Road snapped, rolling to sit up and cross her legs. “She never raises her voice, she’s never mad, she’s never annoyed, she’s never  _ anything  _ but pleasant.”

Something like cautious inquisition prickled in the pit of Tyki’s stomach and he stepped over to sit down on the floor facing her. “You think that’s because she doesn’t love you?” he asked to Road’s answering silence. “It’s  _ because  _ she loves you,” he reasoned, his frown gentling. “Everything you do is designed to make people hate you, but she can’t. Of course she can’t. She doesn’t know how to hate.”

“It’s boring,” Road muttered, plucking at a loose thread in her comforter. 

“I wouldn’t worry about that,” Tyki reassured, a reluctant smile tugging at the corner of his lips. “She tells you when you’ve upset her, right?” he said, because he held no doubts that she did.

“Yeah,” Road admitted, reluctant, “but even then. She just sits me down and  _ talks  _ about it.”

“It’s important to listen,” Tyki murmured. “People like her aren’t common, and they seem like the forever sort, but they only last forever if you let them.”

“Link’s like her,” she said, not quite meeting his eyes, “right?”

“They’re special,” was all he said, eyes on his fingers, twined loosely in his lap. 

“Do you love him, too?” she asked, uncharacteristically subdued. 

Tyki didn’t say anything for a long moment, eyes on his slowly twisting fingers. Weighing up a simple  _ no  _ as mostly true against why it had to be like that. “I can’t,” he said at length. “Even if I wanted to, or  _ should.” _

Road snorted another laugh, but it wasn’t so sharp this time. Dull and somehow sad. “Right,” she mocked, half-hearted, “because you don’t believe in romance and you’ll never find someone to love.”

“Nah,” he said, and lifted a smile onto his face, almost laughing. “I have a condition.”

“Bitchass isn’t a disease,” Road mocked.

“Well,” Tyki demurred, pushing up to stand, “Tricia deserves better than Sheryl, and Link deserves better than me, and none of us deserve either of them at all.”

“You gonna go kiss and make up?” Road asked, arching her brows as a sort of mockery.

Tyki gave her a look. “You’ve witnessed your parents’ marriage firsthand. Do you think I’d willingly subject him to that?”

“Guess you love him more than dad loves Tricia,” Road reasoned. 

“He doesn’t set the bar too high,” Tyki allowed, and went to pluck the book he’d been looking for off the shelf. “Meaningful gifts go a long way as a middle ground, though,” he admitted, holding it up pointedly. “And, hey,” he paused before making for the door. “Do me a favour?”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” she said.

“Give me my lighter back?” he pleaded.

With a roll of her eyes she dug into her pocket and tossed it across the room, saying with a grumble, “Didn’t think you’d remember that.”

“I didn’t,” he admitted, pocketing it. “I don’t remember a damn thing past Mullet abandoning the Lion Rangers.”

“I hate you,” Road muttered, her sourness just a different flavour of fondness.

“Sure you do,” Tyki mocked, slipping out the door with the book in one hand and his lighter in the other, not bothering to poke his head downstairs and announce his departure. Tricia understood, and Sheryl didn’t deserve the courtesy. 

When he stepped through the door back into his castle he found Link at the hearth piling pancakes onto a plate. Too many for one person, that was certain.

He whipped around, expectant in his surprise, and some complex sort of emotion flitted across his face when he saw Tyki, relief and apprehension chief amongst it. 

There was a beat of silence, neither of them saying much of anything, before Link admitted, meek and trying to play it off as dismissal, “I didn’t expect you to be back so soon.” Hope, by the look of the full platter by the pan, was another thing altogether.

A strange mixture of regret and guilt coalesced in the pit of Tyki’s stomach and he murmured, moving beyond the doorstep to place the book on the small table by his armchair, “Yeah, well. It was stupid to leave in the first place.”

Link looked as though he wanted to vehemently agree, but instead chose to flip the pancake that was smoking and almost burned in the pan, examine the damage, and tip the whole thing into Allen’s eager flames before setting the pan aside and carrying the loaded plate over to the table. “Where did you go?” he asked as though he didn’t expect an answer, but this time would very much appreciate one.

Tyki hesitated, not sure if there was a standing invitation for him to join Link for breakfast, and admitted, “To see my brother’s family.”

“Was it nice?” he asked without quite meeting Tyki’s eyes, setting two plates at the table as wordless invitation for Tyki to carefully pull his chair out and sit with him.

“Periodically,” he said, too aware of too much tension still sitting between them. “Sometimes they’re worth the headache.”

“You don’t talk about them much,” Link commented, cautious and polite, filling their corner of the large table with honey and sugar and syrup and cream. 

“Neither do you,” Tyki countered.

“I don’t have a family to talk about,” Link said, short, finally taking his seat and pulling a paper-thin, crepe-like pancake onto his plate and rolling it delicately around his cream and berries and honey. “Are they through the black door?”

Still so mild, so restrained. Waiting for Tyki to bring up something worth talking about for him to relent to talking about it.

“Not really,” Tyki said, careful, wondering how he ought to turn this conversation into one they would both benefit for having. “The black door is just full of more doors. You have to know which one you’re looking for to find it.”

Link hummed, uninvested consideration. 

“Hey,” he murmured, reaching out to catch Link’s hand in his, a gentle hold. An apology tangled in his throat, and he couldn’t seem to make himself say it. He and Road, and Sheryl too. They weren’t very good at saying things like  _ I’m sorry.  _ “Look,” he said, eyes on the way Link’s fingers sat quiet and relenting in his, “I’m not a very good person at the best of times, but I care about you. Enough to want to do the right thing,” he admitted, hating himself for the way Link’s fingers curled against his in a gesture of tentative hope, “despite whatever I might want.”

He glanced up, caught the flicker of yes-or-no confusion in the furrow between Link’s brows. Gently, he extracted his fingers from Link’s, brushed his thumb across his knuckles one last time before leaving him cold on the polished wood of the table. 

“I liked kissing you,” Tyki said, lips pitched in a small, apologetic smile, “but we shouldn’t do it again.”

Link took a moment to gather himself, let quiet rejection settle in. He nodded, short and stilted, and busied his hands with arranging his cutlery and cutting into his crepe. “Okay,” was all he said, closed-off and reserved.

“Okay,” Tyki agreed on the breath of a sigh, and figured, almost reluctantly, that was that. Link had gotten the mature honesty he’d asked for, and Tyki had explained his rebuttal. Doubtful that he’d be able to hold Link’s hand, or drape a lazy arm over his shoulders, or let him rest on Tyki’s chest when nightmares kept him from sleeping. 

But it was better than the alternative. 

It was better than letting Link love someone who couldn’t love him back.


	7. Chapter 7

Whatever ideal was, Allen was mostly certain that the state their house had settled into when the days following Tyki and Link’s argument bled into a week - was not it.

Which wasn’t to say that he could state empirically what is was that had changed or gone wrong so much as that a resounding feeling of wrongness had settled in with the change. Being that Link tended to keep his eyes low and his words brusque, and that Tyki had taken to long silences calligraphed in dissatisfaction. 

He’d sit with Allen at night, long after Link had gone to bed with a short  _ goodnight.  _ Allen tried to enjoy it, their quiet companionship returned, but it wasn’t like it had been. It wasn’t like it used to be, before Link and his curse and all his tantalising sweetness. Tyki didn’t speak much, but it wasn’t the comfortable silences they’d enjoyed before. There was a lot that wasn’t being said, and none of it was written for Allen’s audience. 

Link wasn’t the problem, of course. Allen loved him dearly - almost as dearly as he loved Tyki. 

But Tyki loved him too, and maybe  _ that  _ was the problem. 

As much as he refused himself, and refused Link in the same breath, he couldn’t seem to parse the reason he had taken to such a foul mood. Tyki wouldn’t listen to Allen, he knew. He never had. Spoken in subtleties and exhaustive affection, love had only ever been for someone else. 

Allen wasn’t sure if he adored or loathed the way Tyki’s heart had fluttered and throbbed with earnest unease back before Link had professed in not so many words to be in love with him. Perhaps it was somewhat premature, or even melodramatic to assume their affection to be anything so compelling, but whether it was or wasn’t didn’t change that now Tyki’s heart sat cold and aching, and wouldn’t warm despite the burning embers Allen piled around it. 

There was no question to how he hated that. 

Tyki didn’t pull Link close, didn’t tease or laugh, and made a conscious effort to keep a careful foot of distance between them when they left the house. Link, when Allen stole glances from beneath the frypan or kettle, had worried a line of determined unconcern between his brows. Allen may not have been party to every beat of his heart, but he knew how it felt. Could see with clarity how it curled into a tight fist every time he caught Tyki’s eye like a flare of hopeless, blameless anger.

Meals were filled with less bickering and more courteous silence, and despite the glances Allen caught them stealing with backs turned, Tyki worked on his spells and Link kept the house, and not an unnecessary word was wasted. 

It was stifling, claustrophobic, and all but unbearable. 

But it wasn’t Allen’s business to say what was best, so he bit his tongue and more often than not settled deep in his embers in a facsimile of sleep whenever he wasn’t needed and their silence was at its worst. 

Hope against hope, he hoped it wouldn’t last. The only times Allen had seen Tyki like this had been longstanding arguments between them whose only resolution was found when they’d forgotten what it was they’d disagreed on. Tyki was not a man of apologies, and that would always be a point of contention, but Link was not like Allen. 

Allen doubted him to be the type to let things go back to how they’d been without a word said in between. 

His hope that things would turn out okay came to dim light when Tyki announced, turning in his chair to face Link, “I want to have another look at the curse.” Link’s attitude of unwilling acquiescence said everything there was to say about his hopes of Tyki finding anything worth knowing. “It’s too vague,” Tyki explained with a wave of his hand, “to figure out what, exactly, I need to isolate.”

“You know as much as I do,” Link said, curt with doubt, and kept at washing their dishes from lunch. “I don’t see how much help I could be to you.”

A curious frown flickered across Tyki’s face - some sort of offended reprimand, prickled by Link’s apathy. “Do you want to be cured?” he demanded, his patience always selective. 

“I didn’t want to be cursed in the first place,” Link bit out, a glare like a fistful of frustration directed at the soapy water of the sink, “but that’s just how things are, now, and anything you try to do about it won’t fix me.”

Tyki hesitated a moment, eyes low with a different sort of frown, and Allen sank low and unobtrusive between his burning logs, watching them through the flaring embers. 

At length Tyki stood, strode over to Link, placed a cautious hand on his shoulder, a touch as light as a feather. Link stilled, but didn’t turn around. “You came to me for help,” he reminded, voice subdued and full of everything they were refusing to speak about. “Do you still want it?”

“Of course I do,” Link mumbled, shoulders lifting slightly as though to shy away from Tyki’s brief touch. “I just don’t see what good it’ll do.”

“Link,” he urged, fingers drifting down Link’s arm to gently pull his hands from the water, turn him so he had to glance down and away to avoid the determined earnestness of Tyki’s frown. “Please. This isn’t right.” 

“What isn’t?” Link asked obtusely, delicately extricating himself from Tyki’s hands.  _ “This?”  _ he pressed, gesturing to the distance between their chests, usually pressed almost suggestively close. “This is what you wanted,” he reminded, a scowl cast in halfhearted reprimand.

“That’s not what I’m talking about,” Tyki said, and sounded more than a little pained. “You,” he corrected, “here. Like this. It’s not what you want,” he reminded, hands thoughtless in the way he rested them on Link’s shoulders. 

“What about me being here isn’t living up to your expectations?” Link demanded with a glare, defence making him curt. Allen had no doubt that if Tyki had an answer to justify it, Link would do everything he could to make him happy. 

Link would do everything he could to make them happy. 

Be it cook more meals in a day, be it do Tyki’s laundry, be it buy groceries unaccompanied. Allen had a certainty that Link would do it at his own expense, if it might make them happy. 

“You couldn’t make me happier,” Tyki promised, subdued, and perhaps a poor choice of words. “But I can’t be satisfied when there might be something I can do to make you happy, too.”

From the way Link’s expression wavered, Allen wasn’t sure he could tell if that made it any better or worse. Couldn’t tell if Tyki played too closely to the hopeful throb of Link’s heart. Cursed hope. Howard Link deserved better than the mess of Tyki Mikk. The problem was, they all knew it, and as shortlived as that hope was, as quickly as reality set back in, Allen knew Link was just the same as him.

No one deserved the mess of Tyki Mikk, but neither of them could help but want to be part of it. 

“What do you need?” he asked, muttered, because he’d do anything to make Tyki happy. Allen was familiar with the feeling.

“Another look at the limitations,” Tyki explained, leading Link by a trailing hand to sit at the lounge, Tyki in his chair and Link out of arm’s reach in his own. “The Deus Ex has potential, but the problem is it has too much. I need to be more specific with what it’s fixing.”

“We know it’s not on my heart,” Link reminded, nose wrinkling subtly as Allen crept over the bundled logs to watch their conversation unfold, cautious of another fight breaking out. Link would do handstands for Tyki, but the promise of him doing anything at all was on rather thin ice. 

“So is it on your body,” Tyki mused, “your mind, or your will?”

Link’s nose effectively scrunched when he confirmed, “It’s certainly got nothing to do with what I want.”

“Desire’s out,” Allen agreed from the fireplace, mild. Whatever reformation of pleasantry was being offered, he wouldn’t have them start to bicker over pointlessly inalienable facts. Tyki, from the look of him, forcibly bit back some obtuse comment whose only purpose would stand to be to drag the possibility of cursed desire out until every inch had been examined for groundless probability. “It doesn’t make him  _ want  _ to follow commands,” he reasoned, chin resting on the log. “It just forces him to, regardless.”

Tyki glanced at Allen, the vaguest gesture of barely-parted lips and an incredulous shake of his head easily misconstrued as him turning it. A silent question of  _ what was that for? _

Allen’s brow quirked, just as pointedly subtle. Retorted question.  _ You’re finally talking; why fuck it up? _

Tyki blinked at him, expression settling into mild unamusement.  _ As if I would. _

Allen huffed a quiet sigh, equally unamused, and let his eyes slide away. Effectively rolling them.  _ Sure.  _

“So,” Tyki allowed, distaste for the admission curling his words, quietly peeved at the silent exchange, “will is out.”

“Was it ever in to begin with?” Allen challenged, sweet, blinking innocently at Tyki’s short glare. 

“When you resist a command,” Tyki continued, eyes back on Link in a petty determination to ignore Allen, “what sort of pain do you experience?”

Link’s expression creased into unhappy consideration and he summed, “It’s usually to do with the command itself. Talking is like sand in my throat; moving is like fire, or vices shattering my bones.”

Tyki hummed, his lips pulled in something of a wince. “What about involuntary commands?” he asked. “If I were to tell you to think about elephants, would it hurt to stop?”

“No,” Link admitted, a frown plucking at his brows, “but it’s impossible to stop thinking about, even without it being a command,” he grumbled, rubbing his fingers at his brow.

“Well,” Tyki hazarded, “maybe that’s why it doesn’t hurt. You can’t fight it the same way you instinctively fight voluntary commands.”

“But you can command me,” Link reasoned, his frown turning to an invested scowl. “My mind, that is. So the curse can’t only be on my body.”

Tyki blinked, and seemed to draw a bit of a blank. “When?” he asked, confused.

Link’s cheeks coloured pink and he sat back as though to pull away from having to explain. “Kingsbury,” he said, a stiff reminder, his scowl a transparent barricade to his embarrassment. “You made me drink a strawberry milkshake.”

Tyki’s expression settled into mild surprise and he asked, “You remembered that?”

“It was a rather memorable day,” Link enunciated, smoothing a crease from his pants with careful fingers. “I woke up in a wizard’s castle, and he whisked me off to the capital through the very same door which I’d walked in through from the moors. Regardless,” he stressed, delicately clearing his throat with a pointed sort of look levelled at Tyki, “that’s to say the curse can’t only be bound to my body, so it must be on my mind.”

Allen’s hum of dissatisfaction echoed Tyki’s, and Link glanced between the two of them. 

“What?” he demanded. “Isn’t that right?”

“It is,” Allen allowed, reluctant.

“If it were on your body, it would be much easier,” Tyki agreed. “The mind is tied a lot more closely to the heart. It can be difficult to separate them.”

“You seemed to manage it alright,” Link observed, dry.

“Tangibly,” Allen agreed, “it’s a lot easier than metaphysically. But we can’t exactly remove your mind. You wouldn’t be left with much.”

Curiosity flickered across Link’s brow and he turned to Allen to ask, honest intrigue, “What  _ is  _ a heart for, then?”

“Things the mind can’t explain,” Allen shrugged. 

“Love,” Tyki listed, “and hate. Dreams.”

“Belief,” Allen supplied. 

Tyki looked somewhat taken aback. “That’s not true,” he countered. “The heart governs the mind, the mind governs will and will governs the body. And belief is definitely founded in the mind.”

“It  _ isn’t,”  _ Allen groaned, exasperated. “You can’t command Link to believe anything; it’s a matter of the heart. It relies on a leap of faith.”

Tyki scoffed a laugh and tried to reason, “I believe in magic, don’t I?”

Allen all but rolled his eyes when he explained, “Magic is an objective truth. Belief is faith in the subjective. You don’t believe in God,” he offered.

“I believe in  _ god,”  _ Tyki corrected, his emphasis suggesting his belief wasn’t the kind of grand gesture that would have built the cathedral in Kingsbury. “I have all the potential to become one,” he reminded, nose wrinkling as though the very thought of such a responsibility disgusted him. “It’s the afterlife,” he said, “heaven, hell, purgatory and all that.  _ That’s  _ what I don’t believe in.”

“So,” Allen reasoned patiently, “God is an objective truth to you and an afterlife isn’t - therefore you can’t  _ believe  _ in it.”

“Alright,” Tyki mocked, turning back to Link as though to prove a point, “fine. Howard, I command you to believe in God.”

Link glanced between them, completely bemused, and said, “I already do.”

Tyki huffed a weary sigh and acquiesced Allen’s point with a vague, “Of course you do.”

“So,” Allen summarised, “you can’t command certainties - we’ve agreed you can’t make him feel. But the mind does evoke feelings.”

“That would have to do with belief,” Tyki countered, exasperation building.

“No it doesn’t,” Allen all but groaned. “It has to do with what you  _ see,  _ with your  _ eyes,”  _ he mocked. “I swear you’re usually not half this bad at critical thinking.”

“Good thing you stole my brain, too,” Tyki muttered, shooting him a narrow-eyed glare. “All you need is a good dose of courage and I’ll be the fucking Wizard of Oz.” 

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Allen sighed.

“Jesus,” Tyki breathed, closing his eyes against his frustrations, “read a book.”

“Maybe I would,” Allen griped, “if you didn’t have Link so busy staring at your shoulders every time your back’s turned.”

Link looked incandescent with horror. Tyki mostly looked confused.

“Why…” he asked, brows creasing in confusion, “why  _ shoulders?” _

“They’re,” Allen said, and gestured vaguely at the shoulders in question. “Broad?” he hazarded.

“Oh,” Tyki nodded, completely unconvinced, “right. So Link’s too busy staring at my broad shoulders to read you a bedtime story.”

“Yes!” Allen hissed, incredibly offended that he’d somehow lost ground here. He had definitely been on his way to winning Tyki’s spiteful silence. Where had he gone wrong. 

“Link,” Tyki announced, a mask of severity falling over his amusement, “I’m going to have to ask you to stop staring at my shoulders.” Link swallowed, his blush visible to all. “It’s distracting you from more important things.”

“Like you’re any better,” Allen muttered, sour.

“The difference is,” Tyki said, refusing to let Allen get to him, “I have all the time in the world to stare at Link’s shoulders. But he’s a very busy man. He shouldn’t be wasting his time on something like that.”

“Can we please,” Link bit out, voice curt and pitched a tone too loud through his embarrassment, “get back to this…  _ evoking  _ business.”

“With pleasure,” Tyki agreed, voice as smooth as ever, a snide glare sent to Allen on the side. “So - this works with sight, right?”

“For the last time,” Allen groaned, dropping his head against the log, “belief is-”

“The heart’s business,” Tyki finished with a roll of his eyes, “I get it. Rhetorical fucking question. I guess it’s an objective truth that you’re a huge pain in the ass.”

“Stop it,” Link snapped, his reprimanding glare shot evenly between the two of them. “You’re acting like children.”

“Well,” Tyki huffed, “in the vein of Allen’s childishness, how about this; Link,” he commanded, “you must see me as unbearably attractive.” 

All he got in response was the same old glare, and Allen couldn’t hide his snicker of childish amusement. 

“Well?” Tyki prompted, brows arched expectantly. “Did it work?”

Prim and stern, Link said with a face cut from unamused stone, “You’re going to have to try something a little more implausible.”

“Uh, alright,” Tyki mocked, completely missing the implication of what Link had just said. “You must see the house as on fire.”

That, at least, seemed to have something of an immediate effect. All at once Link’s breaths wound tight and careful, his jaw clenched, brows twitched in an effort not to flinch. His hands curled to fists in his lap and with the way he swallowed, thick and nervous, Allen could see his pulse thrumming in his neck. His eyes flickered around the room before he closed them, steadied himself with a sharp breath. 

His lips parted, subtly trembling, but before he needed to say anything Tyki quickly dismissed the command, vanished Link’s hallucinations. 

He didn’t look particularly happy with himself, something like regretful concern written in every line of his body. A bad choice of experimental words. Still, he didn’t move from his seat. Forceful propriety kept him from going to Link’s side, and all he or Allen could do was watch in apologetic silence as Link forcefully swallowed his panic down and opened his eyes. 

He cleared his throat once, twice, before asking, “Is that everything?” Crisp, curt. Words bitten off by lingering panic, his fear forced away and beaten down so he wouldn’t react, wouldn’t react, even to the most horrific sights. 

Tyki could have forced him to see a room full of snakes and Link would catch his screams in his throat where they wouldn’t ever be heard. 

“Are you okay?” Tyki asked, voice incurably gentle, and he sat poised like a bird about to take flight. Like if Link so much as hinted that what he wanted was consolation Tyki would go to him, forget whatever boundaries they’d wordlessly agreed to put in place. 

Link pulled in a sharp, steadying breath and pushed himself to stand, eyes averted. “I’m fine,” he said, brushing his anxious hands off against his pants, making with unhurried poise for the stairs. 

They waited for the beat of Link’s feet to disappear, and then the quiet sound of his door closing.

Allen breathed a long, quiet sigh and let the form of his body melt a little in tense almost-relief. Some parts dread. It hadn’t exactly been a stellar performance on Tyki’s part, but, hey, at least they were talking. 

“Well,” Tyki announced briefly, “that went well.”

“It  _ was  _ going well,” Allen agreed, emphatically morose.

“Why did you have to bring it up?” Tyki asked, pinning Allen with a look of weary, demanding inquisition. “Right in front of him.”

“I don’t know,” Allen huffed, turning a scowl in Tyki’s direction. “Why’d you have to ask him if he found you  _ unbearably attractive?” _

“I,” Tyki started, and then paused, confusion flickering across his face. “I didn’t?” he hazarded, not sounding so certain but certainly wanting to be told if he had.

“Well,” Allen scoffed, bordering on derisive, “you got an answer.”

Tyki settled back in his seat with a huff, confusion dancing a comedic tragedy across his face while he worked backwards through the conversation as though to pinpoint what, exactly, Allen was talking about. “Oh,” he sighed at length, “Jesus. What, he’s already unbearably attracted to me?” 

For all the fun and games of it, the realisation didn’t seem to make him very happy.

In fact, from the way he dug a cigarette from his pocket and half-stood to light it off Allen’s proffered fingertip, sat down in a weary huff and let the living room fill with acrid smoke, it painted him the very definition of unhappy. For someone so willing to play and tease at emotions, he was deeply unsatisfied when he discovered they were, well, honest. Immutable.

Tyki, Allen knew, had never desired for someone to fall in love with him.

He simply made it too easy.

 

* * *

 

That night was one Allen was deeply familiar with, but one Link hadn’t yet had the chance to witness. 

Tyki had bundled his unruly hair into a messy bun and wore a loose, billowing shirt with the collar hung open a button or two more than usual so the opalite he wore around his neck sat in pretty contrast against his chest, the old scar Allen had left when he’d burned Tyki’s heart from his body peeking out from beneath the soft cotton. 

Shirt tails tucked into the slim waist of his pants, and his preparation for an ill-advised night spent drifting between Kingsbury’s finest parties was met with two shots of whiskey thrown back as though he didn’t feel the burn of it. 

“I’ll be back late,” he said, a parting hand clapped impartially to Link’s shoulder with none of the lingering promise of familiarity, “or not at all. Don’t wait up.” The subtle care of a veiled command. At least he bothered for that courtesy.

“Wait!” Link demanded, caught up in the rush, as Tyki pulled on his shoes and made for the door. “Where are you… going,” he asked, trailed off to the punctual snap of the door closing behind Tyki’s back. Utterly confused, Link turned his attention to Allen to ask again, reluctant in a hurt sort of way, “Where is he going?”

Allen sank deep in his embers. He knew, at least, that Link would be less than happy with the answer. “I wouldn’t worry about it,” he murmured, occupying himself with burning away the rough filaments of the fresh log Tyki had dropped in his fireplace before leaving. “You’d be best off getting an early night.”

His concern wasn’t that Tyki would be back late. Rather, it was that Tyki would be back before Link had made his way to bed. 

“Allen,” Link entreated, stepping closer.

“Don’t worry about it,” Allen commanded with a stern, biting scowl. It really would be best for Link to go up to bed as soon as possible. 

Link paused, and brushed his fingers across his brow with an aggravated sigh. “Well,” he muttered, turning on his heel to clear away the plates at the table - Tyki’s dinner all but untouched for stolen bites of a cursory meal, which he scraped into Allen’s reluctantly agreeable appetite, “I guess I don’t have much choice in the matter, now.”

Allen couldn’t find it in himself to be sorry.

Once he’d cleaned up, Link settled into Tyki’s chair with their latest book, and it took Allen yawning extravagantly throughout his reading and eventually settling low in a pretense of sleep before Link finally caved to Tyki’s command, set  _ The Ice Queen  _ aside with a sigh and crept off up the stairs, feet quiet so as not to wake Allen from his prompt sleep. 

Allen peeked out from beneath his logs when he heard the shower’s faucet run, and heated Link’s water without a word and more than a little shameful regret. 

At length the noise quietened, Link’s dissatisfaction lingering in the silence the house had settled into, and Allen did what he could to muffle and mute the stairway, because the last thing Link deserved would be to find out regardless. 

With nothing much to do but worry, no blessing like Link’s to force him away from it, Allen settled low and quiet into the dim half-light of the empty house, the only sound the subtle creak of the castle settling and the gentle pop of him absently burning through his firewood. 

By the time Tyki returned, everything was silent and Allen had fallen into something of a dozing sleep. Hours must have passed without anyone to watch them go, and when Allen peered sleepy and shapeless over the embers of his logs to watch Tyki lead her inside, he noted with a vague sort of disappointment that she was as effortlessly beautiful as any creature he had seen. 

Long straight hair as black and glossy as ink spilled down her back in a single line bound at the nape of her slender neck, skin soft and white as a moon, and, when Tyki took every delicate care to pull her dark lenses away, eyes with the narrow scorn of a cat’s. 

Red-painted nails caught in the dim light Allen shone on the room, and she curled slender fingers around Tyki’s chin, her look as sharp and critical as a raven inspecting some pretty piece of glass. 

“You’re not bad,” she murmured, voice low and throaty. Certain and ambivalent in the way someone who only ever got what they wanted and were rather bored with it was certain and ambivalent. 

“What’s so good about me?” Tyki challenged, voice pitched just as quiet, stepping backwards to lead her to the chaise lounge beneath the stairs. 

She was pretty in a pant suit, her tailored black blazer extravagant in its subtlety, and her slim lips twisted in something of distaste. “Fishing,” she mocked, letting him lead her.

“I am quite the fisherman,” Tyki agreed, his taunting grin catching on the firelight, “for compliments, among other things.”

Her sharp hand went to his chest, pushed him to sit. Firm and unquestionable. “Your smile,” she said, stoic disdain all but unmoving, thumb pressed to Tyki’s lower lip, “gets you a free pass.”

“Just my smile,” he mocked, Allen unable to ignore the way his legs shifted as his hand drifted from her hip to her slim waist, urged her to kneel over him on the seat. 

“Your voice,” she murmured, blood-red nails moving to drag through his hair to a quiet, throaty hum of encouraging satisfaction. “Your egotism,” she added, curling her fist into his hair to tug his head back so she could look down on him, imperious and commanding. 

She was a good match for him, Allen realised in a moment. Rightly, it wasn’t a particularly pleasing thought. She had a strength to her delicate frame, slender hands, pretty features. The furthest thing from fragile. 

Of course. Tyki wouldn’t want to be  _ careful.  _ Not then, not there, and certainly not with her.

Not the way he would be with Link, were he the one kneeling over him on that red chaise lounge. 

“You’re not so selfless, yourself,” Tyki taunted, hands pulling the blazer from her slim shoulders, voice quiet as a dare in the sing-song way he chimed,  _ “Lu-lu-bell.” _

Her hand was at his throat, red nails like claws drawing divots into his dark skin and she pressed close to him, looked down on him, dissatisfaction in the heated breath that fell past her tongue. “I love a charity case,” she mocked, glossed lips dancing just out of his reach.

“Will you donate to my cause?” Tyki murmured, hand so low at the small of her back that his fingers framed the curve of her small, pert ass. The other dragged up the back of her slender thigh, her knee pinned between his shamelessly parted legs. 

“It’s more than you deserve,” she said, releasing his throat and angling her chin to work at the buttons of her collar before Tyki lifted the shirt over her head, bared small breasts cupped in diaphanous black lace. 

Allen couldn’t see the look of sly satisfaction on Tyki’s face when he dipped his head beneath her collarbones, but he could see the way her back arched, chest pressed into the attention of his lips. Pale fingers tangled into his hair and Allen couldn’t tear his eyes away from the artful juxtaposition of Tyki’s coffee-brown hands on her milk-white back, fingertips curling dimples into her soft skin. 

Something rose in him, watching them, hearing her quiet gasps, pleased sighs. Some helpless, pleading desire. 

_ That might be me,  _ was the thought that crept into his mind, eyes on her body and the way Tyki touched her. He thought, wistful reluctance, that he might look like that. Star-white in Tyki’s hands. 

She tilted her head back, freed her neck for Tyki’s kisses, and the silken line of her hair slipped over her shoulder to hang down her naked back. Allen wondered, watching the swish and sway of it, if he’d like to wear his hair long like that. Saw the way Tyki pulled the ribbon from the base of her tie and threaded his fingers through to fan strands of ink across her skin like a loom of silken thread. 

Allen considered that he might very much like to have long hair, if it meant he could feel what it felt to have Tyki run his hands through it; thought he might like to have breasts if he could feel Tyki’s fingers search for the clasp of his brassier and pull it from his shoulders.

He twisted, pinned her down against the lounge to a high, breathy moan. 

“Say my name,” he murmured against the arch of her bared throat, hands at the front of her slim pants, teeth biting, while her fingers dug harsher into his hair. 

“I’ve no idea who you are,” she scorned through a gasp, still so pretty, so refined in ecstacy. She was something to be admired, and so was Tyki’s low, taunting laugh. 

“Shall I remind you?” he mocked, hand slipping into her open pants to another sound of sweet pleasure. 

“My memory,” she challenged despite the thrilled cadence of her voice, despite the way she arched into Tyki’s touch, “is hazy.”

It wasn't the first time Allen had watched this scene unfold - wasn't the first time he'd watched some gorgeous creature come apart in Tyki’s hands. It was the first time that Allen believed Tyki was empirically making the wrong decision. 

But he wouldn't do anything to stop it. Not at the expense of Tyki reviling him. 

So he watched in silence as Tyki unwrapped her like a gift on the same lounge he'd so foolishly pressed Link to and kissed with the same sort of passion, and could only wish he knew how to want the things Tyki wanted from pretty people like her when he kissed and mouthed at her panties until she was arching and writhing beneath him, crying out in a a voice of heady, thrilled poise and giving Tyki what he wanted. Singing his name, over and again, like it was a litany he'd had her memorise. 

No, Allen didn't care that it was her, or that it might easily have been Link. He didn't care that it wasn't him. He was too in love with how Tyki looked in love and in pleasure to mind things like that, knowing full well they weren't things Allen could give him, or wanted to give him, or that Tyki would ever be inclined to desire of him. 

How sweet he was is what broke Allen's heart; not the fact he was sweet for someone else. 

How sweet he was when he kissed her pretty lips, when he slid a hand between them to undo his own pants. Watching with a removed sort of desire to want things he didn't want when Tyki pushed aside the seat of her panties, wet with his mouth and her desire, to push into her, Allen figured it would be twice the tragedy if Tyki were to love him back. 

Twice as sad, if both of them were lonely. 

He made himself small, just part of the scenery, as lust that was foreign to him filled the silence of the room with heady sighs and thrilled gasps. 

Tyki was lovely, like this. Single-minded and completely distracted, his back arching, gorgeous. Pretty dark skin lit in the low light, his hips rolling to meet hers, body curled with pleasure. It was beautiful.

It hurt.

In some reserved sort of way, Allen might truly wish it were him. Not because he wanted to be panting for breath into Tyki’s mouth, but because he wanted to hear the lovely, adoring praises that fell from his thoughtless tongue in answer. 

He was familiar with Tyki’s vanity, with his egotism, with the way he pulled back to kneel between her thighs, eyes on the way he fucked into her, slowing to savour the indulgent moment despite the red welts her red nails scored across his back, despite she way she snapped and bit and writhed for him to move faster, harder. 

All too familiar with the gorgeous, low satisfaction of his voice when he murmured, ever so sweet as she reached down to touch herself, “You’re wonderful, darling, you're gorgeous. Look at yourself, Lulu. Look at yourself. Nasty. Perfect.” 

A grin split his lips, eyes narrow and sharp, and he pressed two fingers to her mouth, slipped them past her teeth for her tongue to dance between them. She all but snapped those teeth at him when he drew his hand away, her fight falling away like a castle of glass when he dragged those slick fingers across the peaked bud of her breast. 

“Do you like touching yourself?” he teased to her high-strung breaths, to the shudders trembling through her, to the high pleasure when she came around him, body arching, hips ceaselessly stuttering to meet his. 

His hand smoothed over her pale skin, cupped her breast, his teeth catching on her Teresa lips when he kissed her, grinning. 

“Tell me,” he entreated, his body still rolling against hers, fingers releasing her hip to wind down between them to find where she was still moving her hand in needless pleasure. “Tell me,” he breathed. “Tell me how you like it, kitten. Show me,” he commanded, words bitten into the skin beneath her ear, and she moaned in an ecstasy Allen had only seen and never felt when Tyki found how she liked it without a word spoken on her part, now-helpless hands digging sharp scores down Tyki’s shoulders, down his back with the pleasure of her second climax.

What a rare treat it must be, this gorgeous, flustered woman. Her command taken, her poise broken, and all at the careful hands of a man who would never dream to love her. 

She didn't strike Allen as the type to mind. 

“Tell me what you want,” he gasped, breath catching in his throat, reservedness breaking. “Tell me.”

Red-bitten lips parted, glossy with bruising kisses, she curled one of her sharp, slender hands into a fist in his hair, pulled him down so her lips whispered lovely against the shell of his ear, and breathed, “Come for me.”

He pressed his lips to her sweat-slick neck to muffle his low, heated groan, and Allen knew the moment of his climax. Knew it like he had the sight of it memorised, because he did. Knew it in the way Tyki fucked into her deep and hard the way she'd been begging him to. Knew the almost-surprised gasp of absolute satisfaction, knew the way his thrusts quickly turned short and sharp, chasing his release, eyes closed, lips slack with pleasure against her neck. 

Allen, more than anything, wanted to be the one to make Tyki look like that. Sound like that. Absolutely lost in how good someone could make him feel. 

He couldn't make himself care, much, for the way they went about doing it, but if it meant Tyki would press a kiss to the corner of his lips between gasped breaths, he thought he might be able to live with the wet heat of messy mouths and slick sweat and everything else that came with it. 

It wasn't something he wanted passionately, because he wasn't the type of creature to want those things. But there was a yearning to it, that adoration. And a pain. A quiet longing that if he had been the type of something that knew how to lust, he would very much have liked to kiss Tyki, and be held by him. But he didn't. He didn't. Even if it looked so lovely from afar. 

He didn't long to kiss Tyki, no, or to be held by him. But he longed for Tyki - for everything that Tyki was. 

He longed to be loved by him, even if he knew that wouldn't make them happy. 

Lulubell did not stay long. She didn’t seem like the type to linger. 

She seemed like the type to hunger, which was proven in the way she soon slipped out of Tyki’s loose hold, discarded what remained of her clothes, poured herself a glass of whiskey from the half-empty bottle, and returned to the lounge to kneel between Tyki’s splayed legs and work him back up with modest kitten-licks of thinly veiled distaste before straddling his hips and seating herself on him. 

Whatever power Tyki had unhanded from her she recaptured at her leisure, and by the time she was picking up her clothes from the floor, prim in her sated satisfaction, the welts she’d carved on Tyki’s chest were deep enough to pearl beaded blood. 

As perfectly tailored and put-together as when she’d arrived, she left with only a single bite turning to a dark bruise beneath her ear. In terms of lingering statements, she had certainly won their war. 

Tyki, meanwhile, didn’t get much further than pulling his pants up before he collapsed back against the cushions of the chaise lounge, looking for all the world like the lorn patient on a psychiatrist’s bench. 

“Was it worth it?” Allen dared to ask as he watched the man he’d been in love with for almost two decades drift off to shameful sleep.

Tyki’s mumbled answer of, “Almost,” was almost as good as  _ not quite,  _ but he wasn’t the type to be prone to regret.

Whatever he’d been trying to do - erase memories of desire for Link, substitute them for a placebo woman he might barely remember come morning - it hadn’t worked. 

But that didn’t make a wasted effort. 

He’d tried, and failed, and that would just have to be good enough.

Allen watched without another word as Tyki fell into his empty sleep, and figured he’d rather rest an eternity than see how ugly things looked in the morning light. Not too far away, now. A few bare hours before Link would wake and find Tyki in the state a very near stranger had left him - and for what? 

Marks scored across his chest as a testament to  _ I tried,  _ and if at last he fell, it wouldn’t be because he hadn’t fought. 

And Allen had thought them having a conversation had been a step in the right direction.

 

* * *

 

Their argument unfolded much as Allen expected it to, and he knew Tyki would have been a fool to think Link wouldn’t notice. Then again, Tyki was much the type to give himself over to flagellation when he couldn’t formulate to punish himself enough.

Link’s derision was just as much a part of his evening coming full circle as he’d had planned. Always willing to accept reprimand where warranted. 

He did eventually give up on Link’s scolding to stalk pointedly up the stairs mid-sentence, because seeing things through - or perhaps remedying what he’d purposefully broken - was not something he’d ever been good at. 

Link pulled in a deep breath, chest puffed, feathers ruffled like an infuriated bird, and forcibly sat himself in Tyki’s chair as though he didn’t know how he was meant to release all the frustrative anger inside him. After a moment he squeezed his eyes tight shut, brows drawn into a severe scowl above them, and press his head to his knees as though overwhelmed by the nonsense of Tyki’s obtuse attempts to hurt him. 

“I know he doesn’t want me to care,” he whispered, pained like something was breaking inside him, “and I’m trying not to, but I don’t know how to  _ stop.” _

“You probably shouldn’t be so certain that Tyki knows what he wants,” Allen murmured from the hearth, quiet consolation. 

Link peered up from his knees, the muted distress written on his face a silent plea for direction.

“He can’t fall in love,” Link reminded, voice quiet. “He said it himself.”

Allen smiled for him, kind and sweet. Link deserved that smile, more than Allen deserved his. Link, who knew how to want the things that Allen could only sigh over, who loved with a sweet earnestness he didn’t know how to hide, deserved Tyki’s heart more than Allen ever had. So he said, voice pitched kind in the face of sharing what he held most dear, “He doesn’t need a heart beating in his chest to fall in love. It’s not  _ gone,”  _ he reminded, reasoned, still smiling that aching smile. “It’s right here.”

Link laughed, hollow with defeat in reluctant acquiescence. “All that means is that he has the capacity for love, but still doesn’t.”

“He doesn’t believe he can,” Allen murmured, quiet condolences. “He’s not native to magic, and sometimes it still baffles him. He can fall in love,” he allowed to Link’s hopeless hope, “but that doesn’t mean he can’t be cruel.”

“Well,” Link rebuked, eyes falling to his twisted fingers, “you wouldn't know. You’re the one who has it, aren’t you?”

Allen laughed, a light, pretty chime despite the weight of dreaded honesty burning like lead in the pit of his flames. “No,” he said, and shook his head. “No, I don’t.”

Link’s brows furrowed confusion for a moment, pieces slowly shifting and falling into place before comprehension dawned and he glanced up at Allen, eyes wide with a different light. “Oh,” he breathed, and looked something like horrified by his own presumptuousness, to be pouring his heartbroken woes out to someone who  _ got  _ it, years before he ever had. “You…?” he asked, words trailing off to nothing. 

Allen shook his head, that small, happy smile sitting on his lips, and another laugh spilled out of him. Fake fake fake. “You too, huh,” he teased, the molten lead inside him popping and bubbling nervously. 

“How,” Link started and then glanced away, cleared his throat. “How long?” he asked, words small and meek.

Allen looked at his hands, watched his nervous fingers pluck fibers from the log on his lap. “I can’t imagine it would take anyone very long to fall in love with him.” 

He let Link draw his own conclusions to that. He knew how long Tyki had been bound to Allen, but there was something shameful in admitting just how long Allen had been bound to him. 

“I have the most important part of him,” he murmured, feeling the steady beat of the heart Tyki had given him so long ago, “but I think I’ve just been pretending all along that we might ever be closer than a spell.” He glanced up at Link, smile wavering on his lips. “Wine doesn’t love its chalice, after all. But,” he reasoned, unable to hold Link’s gaze, “even if he doesn’t love me, I still love that he lets me hold his heart.”

“Why?” Link asked, subdued like he was asking himself the same question. “Why would you love him?”  _ Why would we fall for someone like him. _

“He caught me as I fell out of the sky,” Allen murmured, curling his arms almost defensively around the log, almost protectively, “and gave me his heart.” Why  _ wouldn’t  _ they? “It’s a cosmogony,” he said, giving Link another small smile, tremulous, wavering at the edges. “It’s not his fault. He can be cruel,” he said, burning lips pressed to burning wood, “but he’s too kind for his own good.”

“It’s easy to fall in love with him,” Link sighed, eyes back on his twined fingers, “but it’s extraordinarily difficult to  _ be  _ in love with him.”

A laugh bubbled past Allen’s lips, helpless and absurd, and despite the smile he kept on his face he couldn’t help but cry. Clumsily wiping away the little flamedrop tears, he tried to joke, “You know, it really is my fault he’s so heartless.”

Link’s hand reached out, hesitated at the edge of the hearth where Allen’s flames were almost too hot to bear, and looked as though he might like to take Allen’s hand in his. A small gesture that made the trembling, bubbling ingot of lead well up into more helpless, laughing tears. Laughing, because Allen couldn’t bear to let Link see the honesty of the awful, dreadful weight inside him.

“I wouldn’t say he’s heartless,” Link murmured, comforting, more kindly than Allen deserved, “so I suppose there’s really nothing for you to be upset about.” Perhaps he wasn’t particularly tactful when it came to things like this, but the gentleness of his reassurance read through his artless consolation. 

Despite that Allen laughed through his tears and nodded agreement, that didn’t really fix it, because, well, Link hadn't been there last night. Of course not, of course. He hadn't seen how Tyki could look so lovely in pretending to love someone, and so lost in pretending he didn’t.

Link had lived with them a bare two months and he found Tyki’s pleasantries to be gestures of gentility, but he hadn’t yet rationalised in the same way Allen had that every colour of his transient moods were still  _ him,  _ and being kind one day didn’t null his ability to be awful - just like his moments of brusque self-obsession didn’t negate his generosity.

Tyki’s transient attitudes were nonsensical to Link, so he treated them each like a different version of a man he couldn’t help but love.

But that  _ was  _ Tyki. In all his complexity, in all his mutable panache - in the way he couldn’t help but telegraph his mood even if the shifts in that mood were all but irrelevant to those he telegraphed to. That was Tyki. Childish, intelligent, idiotic, clever. Able to read subtleties at a glance but blind to what was right in front of him. That was  _ Tyki.  _

And that was why it was so easy to fall in love with him.

All in a moment, Link drew in a sharp, decisive breath and stood. “Wait here,” he announced, face set in stern determination - evidently forgetting, for a moment, that Allen had no option  _ but  _ to wait. Or maybe he was just being polite.

Face set steely, he took to the stairs with the look of a man who needed something done and wouldn’t stop until his demands were met, and his disappearance was closely followed by a barrage of harsh knocks against what Allen could only assume was Tyki’s door. 

Whatever conversation followed under Tyki’s peeved demand for an explanation to the disturbance was forceful enough for Allen to hear their raised voices, but still distant enough that he could only make out words like  _ sulking  _ and  _ selfish  _ and  _ child. _

It was quite the apprehensive wait that Allen had there, stuck on the hearth. Not that he’d have dared follow Link if he’d been able. It certainly seemed like the sort of confrontation that was best to be benched for.

Before long, Link was storming back down the stairs, Tyki trailing with sour reluctance behind him. 

“Don’t talk to me,” Link was seething as he made for the coat rack, “don’t  _ look  _ at me. It’s not all about you all the time, Tyki Mikk.” 

Another scolding seemed to be the last thing on Tyki’s to-do list right then, a bleary, pissed mess of just-woken-up as he grudgingly caught the silver-and-pastel patchwork coat Link thrust against his chest. 

“I need to go  _ right now,”  _ Link continued, unswayed by Tyki’s utter lack of enthusiasm as he pulled on his shoes, “and you’re the only one who can take me, so don’t say a word unless it’s to save me from a  _ different  _ sleazy sex-driven asshole,” he bit out, wrenching open the Porthaven door and standing astutely aside for Tyki to stalk through with a look of absolute distaste. The only sort of unstoppable force that could challenge an immovable object like the wizard Joyd. 

The door snapped shut behind them with only a short smile of tense consolation offered from Link to Allen, and the house was plunged into sudden silence, Tyki’s sullenness lingering to mix with what remained of Link’s embittered frustration for a lovely cocktail of apprehension. 

Allen rolled his lips together and bit down on them, glancing around the empty room. Preparations for breakfast half-started and abandoned in the immediate hurt of Tyki’s inability to  _ care.  _ Lulubell’s tinted glasses sat abandoned and forgotten on the low whiskey table by Tyki’s chair, a testament to his frustration at caring too much. 

And Allen, on the hearth. Unable to hate that he couldn’t move for the stupid, senseless heart sitting hurt and heavy in his embers. 

He wanted to combust in a torrent of frustration for the surge of regretful desperation that swelled and swelled inside him, because it had been so  _ lovely  _ when Link could smile at Tyki and Tyki could reach out to touch him on any whim that crossed his mind. The quiet conviction of reassurance that Link was there, and that he always would be. 

Allen could no more easily picture Link leaving now as he could before, but it didn’t feel like a promise of easy certainty anymore so much as bonds of necessity and unfortunate responsibility. 

Somehow, in only two months, he’d made himself responsible for them. For Tyki’s childishness and Allen’s helpless adoration for him. And, truly, Allen couldn’t imagine how it might be to lose him. 

He hated the thought so much that, the moment it crossed his mind, he banished it away with a crumpled scowl of distressed upset and a sharp, defensive breath. 

Link wouldn’t leave them. Allen didn’t know what would become of them if he did. Tyki was already a mess, but even Allen wouldn’t be able to protect his small, stupid heart from how much that would hurt. 

They were gone an hour or more, Allen left to burn through his own thoughts until the door opened. He perked up at Link strode in, Tyki the picture of regretful defeat trailing behind him. Tyki opened his mouth as though about to speak, or ask something, or perhaps even apologise, but was quelled by a sharp look from Link before a breath even passed his parted lips. 

Instead he sighed - peaceful, if reluctant acquiescence, and rather than retreat back up to the petty solitude of his room he went to the sink to wash his hands of the hash metallic fire-and-tang of an industrial sector, and set about wordlessly continuing the prep for Link’s abandoned efforts at breakfast. 

Link himself had a paper-wrapped bundle under his arm, and didn’t once look in Tyki’s direction when he toed off his shoes and carried it over to the edge of the hearth. “I got you something,” he murmured just for Allen as he pulled Tyki’s chair a little closer to the fireplace and sat. 

“Snacks?” Allen hazarded cautiously, watching the bundle Link pulled into his lap. 

“Close your eyes,” Link said rather than answer, eyes stern on the task of unwrapping it.

Unable to do much but comply or complain, Allen lifted his chin and pointedly closed his eyes so all he could see was the flickering, dancing white of his own flames. All he could hear was the rustle of brown paper, the methodical sound of Tyki chopping herbs and dicing tomatoes, and a short, quiet intake of steeled breath before something cool and soft and foreign curled around his hand.

He jumped, a small sound of surprise falling from his lips, and almost wrenched his hand away from the touch before he opened his eyes, caught the determination in the set of Link’s brows, cautious nerves in his bitten lip, and glanced down to where Link’s hand was holding his. 

A thick, heavy glove made his touch bulky and his fingers cumbersome, but it was sturdy and industrial and he was  _ holding Allen’s hand,  _ and despite that he figured it would be infinitely better to smile Allen couldn’t help the surge of overwhelming adoration that had a confounded, utterly overwhelmed laugh turning into a confused, choked sob in his throat, or the surprised tears that pilied and welled up in his eyes, and both his hands were far too busy clinging to Link’s to do much about stopping them, so all he could do was tuck his head down between the cage of his curled shoulders and  _ cry  _ because, because, he’d never been touched before, he’d never been  _ touched,  _ and Link was holding his hand, and he had a sweet, kind smile of selfless patience sitting there just sitting on his lips and he didn’t say anything and he didn’t  _ have  _ to, and he just sat there and let Allen cry over their joined hands for as long as it took, for as long as he needed because Link - Link was the only person who would ever think to hold a fire’s hand. 

Wordlessly unobtrusive, Tyki placed a neat sandwich by Link’s elbow, breakfast- _ cum- _ lunch, and left them their moment to sit without an imposing word at his workbench to peruse his notes for the spell that would ultimately break Link’s curse.

Cautious, Allen peered over Link’s head to glance at him. That foolish man who knew how to make such a fine mess of things. Tyki caught his glance and smiled. A small, apologetic sort of thing, and still so full of quiet affection. Allen couldn’t hate him. 

Even then, he couldn’t help but love him.

 

* * *

 

It was late. Late enough that Link had dozed off in Tyki’s chair with Allen’s book laid open on his lap and Tyki was working, for the most part, by light of a lamp at his table to let Allen settle deep amongst his cracked logs and crumbling embers. 

He peeked a weary, questioning eye open at Tyki when he stood from his seat, eyes on the bottle in his hand and stepped over to crouch by Allen’s hearth, a healthy distance from Link. 

“Can you have a look at this?” he murmured, low so as not to wake Link, and placed the bottle at the edge of the hearth.

Doubtful, Allen reminded, “I’m not a wizard, you know.”

“Yes,” Tyki agreed, “but you understand magic.”

Cautious, still doubtful, Allen peered over the bottle and looked carefully at the empty nothingness that filled it. “This is what you gave Link,” he said, and reached a hand out. Paused with an outstretched finger barely touching it and all in a moment withdrew as though it’d extinguished him. 

As small and innocuous as a chilled glass of water, but nervous paranoia surged in him at even getting that close. 

“You gave that to  _ Link?”  _ he hissed in a quiet breath, glancing quickly between Tyki and his sleeping face. 

“This is the amended version,” Tyki said, “but, yes.”

“Frankly,” Allen whispered, quietly heated, “I don’t know how he still exists. There is endless possibility for that to go wrong. You can’t control it.”

“I can manipulate it,” Tyki corrected, “and if I weave doubt into those changes, there will be endless possibility for it to go anything but right.”

“And you’re so certain you know what you’re doing,” Allen scoffed.

“I am,” Tyki said, brief. “What I’m not certain of is that I’m prepared to lose him.”

Allen pulled in a careful breath, passed a hand across his brow. “That’s the point of this whole thing, isn’t it? To fix Link so he can leave.”

“So he  _ can  _ leave,” Tyki repeated, his emphasis harsh in their quiet whispers. “Not so he’s forced to.”

He breathed a sigh, looked at that dangerous little bottle. “You could do anything with this,” he said, pinned Tyki with a demanding look. “Why don’t you go through that door and find one that leads to Link living a month before any of this happened?”

Tyki dragged a hand through his hair, propped his elbow on the hearth and settled there, eyes grazing past Allen to look at Link. “The same reason,” he murmured, “that you so staunchly believed that six-year-old kid couldn’t be him.”

“It’s not your Link,” Allen hummed, chin resting on a log, forlorn for the ache in Tyki’s words.

“Yeah,” he breathed a laugh, ducked his head in abashed reluctance. His lips twisted like he was mocking himself when he agreed, “It wouldn’t be  _ my Link.” _

“Will you give it to him?” Allen asked, a glance gestured to the bottled Deus Ex. 

“I’m out of ideas,” Tyki admitted, dry and deprecating. “If I can’t break his curse with something made of endless possibilities, I’m not sure that I ever will.”

Allen breathed a sigh, settled into his ashes with a soft flurry of quiet sparks. “You’re messing with things you were never meant to understand,” he said, “so don’t be hard on yourself if it takes more than two tries to figure out how to play God.”

“Think I should do it?” Tyki asked, mulling over the small bottle.

“I think you should leave well enough alone,” Allen reasoned, “but you’d never give up on him, anyway.”

Tyki hummed, a short murmur of fond amusement. “I guess I wouldn’t,” he admitted, setting the bottle down and pushing himself to stand. “Get some rest,” he suggested, slipping the book from Link’s hands and setting it on the low table by the chair. “Whatever happens tomorrow is up to that spell, and I don’t entirely trust it.”

Scathing, Allen muttered, “Wouldn’t mind working on it a little longer before another test run, would you? You’re not exactly overflowing with confidence.”

“I’ve done everything I can, for now,” Tyki murmured, slipping an arm beneath Link’s knees and behind his back, lifting his sleeping gold-haired prince into his arms. “The rest is up to him,” he said, a small, sweet smile on his lips when he turned to carry Link with careful steps up to his bed. “Sleep tight, princess,” he chimed to Allen rolling exasperated eyes. 

“Sweet dreams,” he muttered in return, fond mockery. 

They would be sweet. They always were. But they never made it to Tyki’s sleeping mind. 

Not when they were trapped in the pit of Allen’s burning embers. 

With a quiet sigh turned into a long yawn Allen settled down beneath his logs and waited with heavy eyes for the sound of doors opening and clicking closed again, and when the last latch settled into place he let them slip shut. The world closed to the comforting burn of his own flames, Allen curled himself around Tyki’s small, beating heart, fingers of flame traced over the glistening shape of it, and let himself dream Tyki’s dreams for him. 

Delved into darkness, the prairie where they’d met swirled into intangible form. Tyki at his desk - younger than Allen ever remembered him being. Working over charts from a sky Allen had never seen, but the Geminids were a starstorm powerful enough that they ruptured through the veil, through the Hallway Tyki had traversed to find himself in Ingary. 

Something flittered at the corner of Tyki’s attention, but he didn’t pay it much heed. He was far too interested in the sky, right then, to care for anything that happened in the world around him. 

_ I can’t find you anywhere,  _ it said, and that caught his attention. 

A shade flickering at the corner of his eyes; a demon, or a spirit. Something golden and sweet in all its earnest distress. It wouldn’t hurt him. It wasn’t there to hurt him. 

_ Did you look in the Hallway?  _ Tyki asked. The Geminids made the veil thin; it could all too easily have gotten lost.  _ This isn’t a memory yet,  _ he reasoned, eyes drawn away, always, to the dark sky,  _ but for you, it might be a dream. _

The sky shattered with a thousand colours and the stars started to fall. He raced from the study to the top of one of the low, rolling hills and caught Allen in his hands. Saved him from the cold, immediate death of the earth.

Eyes peered up at him - one bright as a star, the other the charred, burned heart of a sun. 

_ Hello,  _ he said. 

Allen blinked at him amidst the hundred deaths of a hundred stars and asked,  _ Why me? _

Tyki cocked his head and reasoned,  _ I don’t think we have a choice in the matter. _

A cascade of spun gold twisted and flared like the word  _ Rumplestiltskin  _ on Tyki’s lips and he caught Link’s shoulder as he turned as though to step out of their castle and roll all the way down the moors back to Market Chipping. 

_ Wait!  _ he demanded, like he’d never had the opportunity to when the shade or spirit or misplaced memory had turned on its heel and disappeared from the fields. 

A hand on Link’s shoulder, tangible, warm, and a question on his shell-pink lips that made Tyki think the words,  _ I’ve been looking for you everywhere. _


	8. Chapter 8

Allen stirred awake to a fresh log interrupting the slow pulse of charcoaled embers he’d burned down throughout the night and he blearily pulled himself atop it, blinking hazy inquisition with lazy eyes following Link’s brusque morning routine. Already packing grounds into the coffee pot, already pulled his hair back - two neat knots of a plaited braid before it tied off with a red silk ribbon to fall in a slim, uninterrupted line down his back.

“What’s that?” Link asked, nodding a gesture to the bottle Tyki had left on the edge of Allen’s hearth.

“New spell,” he cracked through a long yawn. “Tyki wants you to try it today,” he reasoned on a weary mumble.

“Why did he leave it here?” Link asked, nose wrinkling in distaste. “With the lid off?”

“His hands were full,” Allen reasoned, pointedly simple, and settled down with a sly, teasing smile for the pot.

Link’s immediate blush was sweet and very cute. “He needs to sort out his priorities,” he muttered, smothering Allen’s grin with the blackened butt of the coffee pot. “Where is he?” he asked, needless. As though he wouldn’t go up to the balcony, knock on Tyki’s door or tear the sheets off his bed of his own vocation.

“How should I know?” Allen grumbled, flames lapping at the pot. “You’d think if I could read his mind I’d be a little less infatuated,” he muttered under his breath, not quite able to help himself.

That seemed to stop Link in his tracks for a moment. “I thought,” he started, a wrinkled frown interrupting him. “I assumed the two of you were,” he waved vaguely at Allen, a gesture which ended in something of a shrug. “Connected. He mentioned once,” he admitted with an embarrassed sort of air, “that he could… see through you.”

Allen arched a brow, his teasing grin flickering at Link from beneath the coffee pot and between the charcoaled logs. “Do you keep an index of everything he’s said to you?” he taunted to pink cheeks and an aggravated huff.

“No,” Link refuted staunchly, “but it seemed rather important to know, considering he admitted to eavesdropping on our conversations.”

“Oh,” Allen relented on a laugh, “that. That was _months_ ago,” he teased. “You’ve quite the memory, Link. No, there’s not usually much to see, so he hardly bothers. But we didn’t know what to make of you, and people, for whatever reason, are happier to open up to a fire demon than a wizard.”

“You knew?” Link demanded, scandalised, cheeks still rather pink. “Well,” he amended, pinching the bridge of his nose, “either way. You’re far more personable than he is.”

“Really?” Allen asked, blinking surprise. “I always found him very charismatic. That’s how I ended up here, you know.”

“Being charismatic and being personable are two different things,” Link reasoned, bland. “Even with charisma, he’s still intimidating.” Allen hummed a moment before considering that was fair, in a manner of speaking. Tyki might not have been classically intimidating, but his charisma was somehow a part of what made him difficult to approach. He certainly left people with the feeling that they needed to impress him. “And anyway,” Link continued, levelling a wooden board to begin preparing breakfast, “how is it that he can look through your eyes, but you can’t see through his?”

“It’s a one-way road,” Allen reasoned, reaching out a daring finger of flame for the cheese Link was slicing only to have a knife brandished to chop through his somewhat insubstantial touch. “I have his whole heart right here. He can check in, if he likes - but he doesn’t like to, is the thing.”

Link’s frown wrinkled his brow, intrigue and confusion all woven in together. “Why wouldn’t he?” he asked, eyes pinned on his hands, forcefully dicing tomatoes.

Allen’s smile was wry, and a little bit sad. “He thinks he’s better off without it.”

“How ridiculous,” Link muttered, cracking eggs into a bowl and tossing the shells in Allen’s direction, sharply whisking the yolks into the whites for a creamy, eggy mix.

“Isn’t he,” Allen agreed, something of a smile on his lips. How impossible he made it for them, to be so in love with him. An awful, ridiculous, selfish man, really. Allen could roll his eyes at himself and Link both, for the fact Tyki’s oblivious stubbornness seemed something to forgive him for, rather than hate him over.

“You’d better be talking about me,” Tyki grumbled, sleepy and addled with a voice like a bedhead, from where his heavy steps were descending the stairs. “What’s the point of living with two people who can’t leave the house without me, otherwise?”

“I can’t leave at all,” Allen reminded, dry and unamused.

“You absolutely can,” Tyki countered, leaning around Link to lift the lid of the hissing coffee pot and lift it off Allen’s flames after deciding that, yes, there was enough there to satiate his immediate gratification. “It’s more a matter of whether there would be a house to return to, once I carried you out the door.”

“You couldn’t have designed this place with a _little_ more ingenuity,” Allen muttered, a sly glower shot at Tyki from the corner of his eyes, “but why pay an architect when you have a fire demon to stand in for structural integrity.”

“Amazing how you manage to summarise my exact process of thoughts, but coming from you it makes you sound like an idiot rather than an opportunist,” Tyki mocked, sparing the coffee between two mugs and piling one absurdly high with sugar and cream.

“Opportunism from me would be walking out the door while you’re in bed, and letting your own foolishness crush you in your sleep,” Allen sniffed.

Tyki arched a brow and lifted the unsweetened mug to his lips, wordlessly passing the other off to Link. After indulging in a lengthy sip he asked, “How’s the walking part of that plan working out for you?”

“Children,” Link scolded, dumping the contents of his chopping board into the whisked egg. “It’s too early to be starting pointless arguments, don’t you think?”

“No,” Tyki said at the same moment as Allen framed his refusal.

Link levelled them with evenly-distributed glares. “Set the table,” he commanded of Tyki, rather than indulge in their bickering. “If you plan on testing any spells today, the least you could do is allow me the courtesy of a civil breakfast.”

“Civility is a gift I choose to bestow on pretty women and near strangers,” Tyki reasoned, complying regardless. “Neither of you are either, so I don’t see why I should bother.”

“For my sake,” Link sighed, his weariness crisp as folded linen.

Tyki seemed to pause, and considered that for a moment. “You know, Howard,” he mused, arranging their cutlery at the corner of the table, “you could very easily be misplaced into the category of pretty women.”

“Could I, now,” Link countered, dry.

“Definitely,” Tyki assured, a small, coy sort of smile setting into the corners of his lips as he meandered back over to the hearth. “Long gold hair all plaited like Rapunzel,” he said, flicking playfully at the end of Link’s braid and coming to lean his hip against the hearth while Link staunchly persisted in setting his omelette into the pan. “Cursed at nineteen, a real Briar Rose. You ran away from home and set to cleaning my house,” he added, an arched brow.

It was the first time Allen had felt the cold stoicism of his heart melt, even a little, when Tyki reached out a hand to lift Link’s stubborn chin on his finger, bring Link’s reluctant eyes to match his.

“Skin white as snow,” he said, that smile curling into his voice, “eyes red as blood, and a mind all tangled in snakes. But I think I’d mistake you for Ariane, most of all,” he murmured, his heart clenched against something hot and painful in the depths of Allen’s flames, “for your absolute,” he said, “inarguable,” Link swallowed, “abhorrent taste in men.”

Link didn’t say anything at all. Stood staring at Tyki like a fox eyeing a weasel; as though torn between deciding if he ought to be cowardly or proud. Jaw set, stuck on pride. Breaths trembling with uncertainty. He didn’t say a thing, and Tyki didn’t look away.

“It’s sure to get you killed, someday,” he breathed. Promised.

As close as he could get to ordering Link to put shackles on his heart; restrain himself.

Link lifted his chin from Tyki’s touch, stubborn, and didn’t let his eyes waver. Pride won out. “You can’t kill me,” he said. Promised. “You may be heartless,” he allowed, brows levelling into a glare, “but you’re not a monster.”

Tyki’s smile softened, turned gentle and pitying. He dropped his hand and pried the spatula from Link’s unrelenting fingers, slipped in front of him to lift the omelette from the base of the pan before it had a chance to burn. “Naivete doesn’t suit you,” he said, his back to Link, eyes on Allen as an afterthought. Smile on his lips to mask the set of his jaw, brows heavy with frustration and reluctant pity.

His gaze flickered once to the small, bottled spell by the hearth, and then away.

To the horrible, clenching heat of Tyki’s heart, Allen wanted to combust in a torrent of flame and take him by the shoulders, shake him, kiss him. That pathetic fool of his, so incapable of confronting his fear of losing Link that he’d rather a pitiful attempt at driving him away than say to his face _I don’t want you to go._

But Allen knew what Tyki would say, were they afforded the privacy for Allen to scold him.

 _It’s not that simple,_ or _it’s more complicated than you make it sound,_ or _maybe, just maybe, I care more about him than I do myself._

He had a godawful way of showing it, and Allen didn’t know _why_ it had to be so complicated, why it couldn’t be as simple as Link keeping his curse if it meant staying with them. They were happy, weren’t they? They had been happy. What did it matter, that Link was cursed, if it meant they could go back to that?

“Careful,” Tyki murmured as he folded the egg, voice woven like a veil drawn over a tapestry. “You’ll burn it.”

“It’s not my fault,” Allen said, words cinched tight with all the stupidity and frustration of Tyki’s foolishness, his childish aggressions, his ridiculous, burning heart. “It’s not my fault at all.”

“Here,” Link muttered, scraping chopped mushrooms and tomato and greens onto the other side of the pan. The two of them standing together, cooking together, refusing to look at each other. Tyki’s heart swelling and breaking all over again in the pit of Allen’s flames, and a stern certainty in the set of his eyes that said he didn’t feel a thing.

Allen crept beneath the edges of the pan, out of sight, and curled himself tight around Tyki’s heart, as though he could keep it in one piece with his insubstantial hands. How awful. How horrible and ugly and pathetically miserable they were.

If Tyki would just look at Link, and touch him, and smile like he meant it, so Allen might feel his heart burn like it was meant to burn - sweet, and painlessly in love - he would be happy.

He would be happy, if only Tyki let himself love Link.

Tyki served their breakfast in silence, and they ate in silence, and Link picked up the spell, Tyki’s Deus ex Machina, and only ruptured the miasma of Tyki’s ruthless act of condescension to ask, “What will it do to me?”

“Ideally,” Tyki said, a small, mocking smile flitting across his face, “it will cure you.” Link’s look said he wasn’t impressed, so Tyki explained, “I fine-tuned the effects to work only on your mind, and diluted the strength of the spell. I underestimated it last time, and you ended up a child. We won’t have the same troubles twice over.”

“Just different ones,” Link reasoned, wry. “If my mind resets to how I was two months ago, I won’t remember you,” he said, looking right at Tyki - steel in the set of his jaw, unflinching eyes, “will I.”

Tyki’s chin lifted, the slightest degree. “No,” he said, certain. “You won’t.”

Link held Tyki’s eyes, unwavering. Demanding something of him. Some flicker of reluctance, or apology, or honesty. “Who’s to say,” he questioned, quiet, intrusive, “we’re not setting ourselves up for the same sequence of events to unfold, all over again?”

A scoffed laugh tore from Tyki’s throat; ugly and mean. “When you take your medicine, Howard,” he mocked, “you’ll forget all about me, and be better for it.”

Link drew in a sharp, stern breath, eyes narrowed with rebuttal. But he bit his tongue, held his glare on Tyki’s face, and lifted the spell to his lips without another word to drink it down.

He set the undiluted bottle back on the table, careful despite the sternness of his cultivated frustration, and didn’t lift his glare from Tyki’s mask of too-pleasant unconcern for all the time it might take for the spell to work its magic.

Allen gave a nervous blink, glanced around. There were no strange wrinkles in reality this time, which was decidedly a good sign. He looked at Link, and it was still him. Hadn’t been replaced with some dog, or child, or piece of the furniture. Blonde braid, red ribbon, stern jaw.

His breathing had changed a little, Allen realised in a moment. Not the steady, honest beat of certainty; his chest rose shallow and quiet, as though he were trying to make his breaths seem smaller, quick rust-brown eyes flitting around the room as though trying to remember its layout - or, as though taking it in for the first time. He sat completely still, like a butterfly with its wings spread and pinned beneath a bright light and a magnifying glass.

He didn’t look pleased to have had his memories taken. Not a single flicker of emotion crossed his perfectly blank face, but he was _scared._

Tyki hadn’t noticed yet.

“How are you feeling?” he asked, smooth and faultless, voice still glossed over with a discussion which had never really become an argument.

Link’s nervous eyes locked on him, and he forced himself to unstick his teeth, part his lips. “I’m perfectly fine,” he said, no hint of recognition in his artificial voice, nervous hands clenched on his lap. “Thank you,” he added, a demurration of pleasantry to a man he didn’t know or recognise, and hadn’t yet decided whether to trust.

Tyki’s heart clenched, crushed in on itself like a ball of paper in a fist, a sudden wash of pain so dense Allen wondered if it would turn into a star, too. That was how they were born, after all; by hearts so broken they couldn’t unfold themselves, and just wound tighter and tighter and tighter until they folded into that same nothing Tyki had drawn his spell from, and stayed there breaking further and further until they were more dense and heavy with pain than all the potential of every universe combined and the Hallway couldn’t hold them, and they combusted back into existence only to fall to the earth and die all over again.

Allen’s flames trembled, faltered. He loosened his make-believe hold on Tyki’s heart, terrified by the thought of crushing them back into that lonely place, and Link still didn’t know how to look at Tyki as though he knew him.

“Could I ask,” Link articulated, careful and cautious in a way that spoke to Allen of a panic bubbling up like mercury in his veins, “where I am?”

“Ingary,” Allen spoke up, unable to help himself, panicked by Link’s panic. His Link - his untouchable, impassive, perfectly unfazed Link. “That is,” he stumbled, flames flushing and trembling under Link’s wide, surprised, nervous eyes, “we’re not far from Market Chipping, so… you don’t have to worry about, um. Leaving,” he finished, weak, voice faltering. _Please don’t leave._

Link was still looking at him. Staring, really. As though he’d never seen Allen before in his life. Allen pressed his lips together and shrank down, forced himself to remember how it felt to have Link smile at him, and read to him, and hold his hand. How it felt to tell Link his deepest, quietest secret. _His_ Link, who taught him to cook and make coffee and cleaned his furnace every day because it was important to him that Allen was happy.

_Please don’t leave. You can get to know us all over again, if you have to._

“Might I assume, then,” Link asked, shoulders tight, his cautious eyes drifting from Allen to settle on Tyki’s workbench; the mess of crystals and herbs, and pages of spells that Link hadn’t yet had the opportunity to tidy, “that I’m in the wizard Joyd’s castle.”

Their Link was entirely too clever, and Allen had forgotten how very near terrified he’d been that first night. He’d forgotten how all the steel in Link’s bones had shuddered out on a fragile breath after Tyki had left for bed, and slumped over his knees as though he hadn’t the strength left to hold himself upright. He’d forgotten all about the reputation Tyki had, in those provincial towns like Market Chipping.

“Pleased to make your acquaintance,” Tyki said, and nothing in his voice implied that it was anything but the first time. “Don’t worry,” he said, wry, his hard eyes on the way Link’s hand had surreptitiously crept to his own chest. He wasn’t even pretending to smile. “I’m not in the habit of stealing hearts. I haven’t much use for them.”

_Liar._

Allen’s flames spat and flickered and flared, and despite Link’s nervous look, Tyki didn’t spare him a glance.

Link’s hand dropped from his chest, back to curl into a nervous fist on his lap. He took in the messy plates from their finished breakfast, which he hadn’t had a chance to clear away. “Why did you bring me here?” he asked, eyes on the cherry tomatoes Tyki had scraped aside and avoided.

“I didn’t,” Tyki said, mild. “You brought yourself. But if that’s too much to believe,” he added, a shrewd glance on the flicker of disbelief which crossed Link’s impassive face, “I suppose you have no way to tell if I’m lying.”

“Well,” Link supplied, dainty and crisp as he pushed himself to stand from the table, “If I came here by my own means, I’m sure you won’t mind if I leave by them too.”

“Sit,” Tyki commanded.

A harsh gasp tore from between Link’s teeth and he fell back to the chair as though he’d had his legs cut out from beneath him.

A quiet sigh slipped past Tyki’s lips, cheek turned to Link. Derisive and frustrated. It hadn’t worked. Allen wasn’t sure if he was disappointed or relieved; if Tyki truly had cured Link, nothing would have stopped him from walking out the door. Tyki wouldn’t have, certainly.

Eyes averted, looking blindly through Allen for want of something to settle his gaze on, Tyki murmured, “I don’t mean to cause you any discomfort, Howard, but I’ve been trying to lift that obedience curse of yours for some time now; it’s become a matter of pride.”

“Obedience?” Link repeated, his voice gone numb.

“You came to me for help,” he told Link, boarded-up eyes flickering across to settle on him. “I’d appreciate it if you let me.”

“Do I have a choice?” Link demanded.

A small, tight smile flitted across Tyki’s lips. “That’s a bit more complicated to answer,” Tyki reasoned. “You have every right to refuse me, but I’m afraid I can’t accept your refusal for another hour or so.”

Cautious, trepidatious, Link asked, “What happens in an hour?”

Tyki smiled again, firm and unwaveringly fake. Trying his best to be kind in the face of his own awful heartbreak. “You’ll remember how you got here, and why.”

Link pulled in a deep, careful breath, let his eyes flutter closed, and let it all out in a quiet, delicate stream. “Perhaps,” he proposed, “some tea. While we wait.”

Tyki inclined his head like an excuse to avert his eyes, and stood. “Tea sounds wonderful,” he agreed, his voice unerringly smooth, and moved to take to old iron kettle from its hook, tossed another log on Allen’s flames, and filled it with fresh water.

“Is this okay?” Allen asked, quiet, voice subdued so Link wouldn’t quite hear when Tyki came to place the kettle over his burning, breaking heart.

“Of course,” Tyki murmured, eyes low on Allen so he wouldn’t have to look at Link. “It’ll wear off soon, and he’ll be back with us.”

“That’s not really what I’m talking about,” he admitted, flickering small and low. “Have you seen yourself lately?”

“I’m not sure I know what you mean,” Tyki said, inscrutable. It was easy for him to forget he had a heart that still beat and broke when he didn’t have to feel himself falling in love.

Allen extended a hand, palm up, eyes a pleading entreaty from beneath the edge of the kettle. “Look,” he pleaded, his whole body wreathed in Tyki’s pain. “Please look.”

Tyki’s heavy eyes sat long on Allen’s invitation, and he flickered a glance over his shoulder to where Link hadn’t moved. “I don’t think now is quite the time,” he started to say.

“Now is _exactly_ the time,” Allen corrected, emphatic and stern.

A quiet sigh fell past his lips and he relented. Reached a hand out so his cool fingers brushed through Allen’s insubstantial touch. He didn’t burn - not when Allen had his heart. But Allen’s flames swept through him, a star’s fire mixing with the blood in his veins and carrying the beat of that silly, foolish heart.

His eyes flashed wide, that boarded-up, closed off look falling away in a wash of shock, and before Allen could see any more he brought a hand up to cover them, the other still resting in Allen’s. He could still see the bob of Tyki’s throat as he fought to swallow, the harsh, painful tension of his shoulders, the way his lips stood parted in silence as though he couldn’t bring himself to speak. Fingers draped across his temple, eyes hidden.

“What happened to it?” he seemed to force himself to ask, voice torn ragged and raw despite how quietly he spoke. He’d forgotten how to ask _what happened to me._

“What do you think,” Allen countered, his words just as strung out, voice just as tight. Feeling everything that Tyki felt; that cataclysm of crushing, breaking heartache, so heavy and dense with the terror of Link leaving, of him _forgetting._ “What do you think,” Allen warbled, flamedrop tears welling in his eyes where Tyki refused to let his be seen, “you idiot.”

“It’s not,” he started, stopped, gritted his teeth. Dug his fingers against his skin, dipped his head into his hand. The word _possible_ hung over them, another lie he couldn’t bring himself to add to his too-large collection.

“Don’t let him go,” Allen breathed. _“Please_ don’t.”

Tyki drew in a sharp breath, didn’t lift his head. “It’s more complicated than th-”

“It isn’t,” Allen bit out, Tyki’s desperation welling in his throat. “It doesn’t have to be,” he said.

Tyki seemed to waver for a moment, seemed to teeter, before he set his jaw in steel and wrenched his hand away from Allen’s, dropped his hand from his eyes to glare selfish fury down at him. Cornered terror. Frightened anger. “What does it matter?” he spat, vile with panic at being faced with his own fragility. “Let it break. I never wanted that foolish thing in the first place.”

“Stop lying to me!” Allen barked, tea forgotten, his incandescent red-sparked flames flaring up in a fury hot enough to boil the water out of the kettle. “You gave me the most precious thing you had,” he reminded, furious with Tyki’s obstinate heartlessness. “That’s how these deals work!”

“Even if that’s true,” Tyki snapped, eyes flashing gold with enough heat to match Allen’s, “it’s no excuse to give up on saving him.”

 _Maybe,_ the look on his face seemed to say, _just maybe, I care more about him than I do myself._

Allen pulled in a deep, careful, hurt sort of breath. Of course he would be just as stupid as his foolish heart. “Some ultimatums are worse than others,” he reminded, Tyki’s heart thrumming fast and panicked and scared throughout Allen’s flames. Scared of his own heart. Scared of himself, and the fact he could _feel._

Tyki’s lips tightened. Suddenly cold, a glacial anger. At himself, that he could fall. At Allen, that he couldn’t keep a lie. At Link, that Tyki could ever discover he loved him.

It evaporated the moment he turned his back to the hearth.

The tight bunch of his shoulders fell apart and the fear burning in his heart dropped into something cold and horrible. Something worse than love or loss. Something that sank deeper than panic.

The door was ajar.

Link was gone.

And Allen’s Tyki - the man he loved, that foolish, self-righteous liar who claimed he didn’t care for right or wrong, who said he’d never wanted a heart but didn’t know how _not_ to fall in love, and love with his whole being - he had run for the door before horror had even a moment to take root as panic.

Allen sat on his hearth, bound there, immobile, by the weight of Tyki’s heart. Just where he’d always been, since being given the thing most important to him in the world. Jealousy wasn’t something he understood, or cared for. At the end of the day, there was no one Allen adored more dearly or trusted more closely than Link, and he’d forgotten what they’d be if they were to lose him.

If there was anyone who deserved Allen’s most precious treasure, it would be him.

 

* * *

 

The demon in the fireplace had said they weren’t far from Market Chipping, but it certainly wasn’t the Market Chipping Link knew which he opened the door onto. The two of them were busy, absorbed in murmured conversation, and didn’t see him slip out. Joyd had told him to sit, yes, but had said nothing about staying.

Link didn’t give himself time to think twice. Anywhere was better than the wizard Joyd’s castle. Anywhere was safer. As soon as he was out the door, Link ran.

He ran and ran and ran, as though he were trying to escape his own shadow. Breaths tearing ragged past his aching throat, legs weak from late panic, the cold air cut at his cheeks. It was still summer, wasn’t it? Late summer, certainly, but autumn wouldn’t set in for months yet. He felt like he was missing something. Felt like he was stumbling across an iced-over lake on his bare feet.

He ran and ran and ran, braid bumping erratically against his back, and didn’t stop until he was blocks away, the width of Market Chipping and then half again, and stopped only because he was too dizzy, too lightheaded to keep going. Scared, still so scared, Link stumbled into the shadow of a storefront’s eaves, pressed his back to the glossy-smooth stone of the building, and tried to remember how to breathe.

Tried to take stock of where he was - where he could possibly be.

Bustling crowds whose only second glance for him was spared from the shrewd corner of down-looking eyes and upturned noses. Clothes finer than he’d ever seen, streets wider than he’d ever seen. More luxurious, paved smooth and untouched. A glossy, gold-touched carriage rolling past pulled by glossy, gold-touched horses and it was more riches than Link had ever seen in his life.

Link let his eyes drift up, and up, and up, higher and higher, finding only more grandeur in the Romantic fashionings of carved-and-gilt architecture, and all his breath left him when he settled on a far-distant steeple towering over it all. The bell tower of the Kingsbury Cathedral had been imprinted into his mind since a child.

 _The highest point in Ingary,_ Father Leverrier had told the Church’s orphans. _The place closest  to Heaven, and to God._

Link swallowed, thick and painful, and tried to let it settle in. He was in Kingsbury. He was in _Kingsbury._ He was in Kingsbury and he had no idea how he’d gotten there, or who knew where he was, or how he might get home.

His eyes fell closed, and he forced himself to breathe. Forced his weak legs to hold. Forced his head to stop spinning. He was in Kingsbury. That was all. He wasn’t in another country, or across the sea. He was in Kingsbury, and he would find his way home.

Forcing belief into his determination, Link opened his eyes, mapped where the cathedral’s steeple sat above the rooftops, and set off at a quick, certain pace. How shameful of him, to be asking the Church’s help once again.

He was beyond that, wasn’t he? He’d left the shame of needing God’s help behind. He stood on his own two feet, worked for his own wages, paid for his own food, slept in his own bed. He owed God enough, already. Debt was not something Link sought.

But he’d lost all that. Lost it. And in God’s eyes, and the Church’s, Link would always be their child. As much as he loathed being helpless, he _was._

He walked a long way, but somehow it didn’t seem far. Distances were strange, in a city like that. Streets wound longer than they ought to, and landmarks were closer than they seemed. King’s Square sprawled out before him, cobbled pavement arranged in swirling, nouveau patterns. To his left spread streets wider and grander than any before, lining Coronation Avenue to the palace’s gates. To his right was the cathedral, the gothic spires of its steeple stretching up to pierce the blue of the sky, the modest tile of the chapel’s grand cupola an understatement to the delicate columns and bronze finishings.

And ahead of him was a library.

Link knew what it was, arbitrarily; Ingary’s National Library was nothing to be scoffed at. Steps rose to an eaves of columns arranged in classical order, and carved into the facade were the crisp, clear words _PROPTER SCIENTIAM SCIENTIARUM._ Link took a step forwards, and then faltered.

He’d never been there - he _knew_ he’d never been there. He’d never been to Kingsbury, and knew little enough about the library. But, more even than the cathedral, it was familiar. If he closed his eyes, he could picture dusty shelves, muted silence, an endless forest of inked pages, and the quiet rustle of paper caught in a breeze.

A single green eye looking down at him from the unthreatening shadows of the impossibly high ceiling.

Link opened his eyes, forced himself to remember where he was, and who he was. Whatever the wizard Joyd had done to him, that couldn’t possibly be a memory that belonged to Link. At most, a fragment of childish imagination which had been inextricably tied to the library since he was young. As though he’d imagined that was what it might be like, and since had become cemented in a falsified memory.

He pulled in a deep breath, turned away from the library, and made for the cathedral. He had no idea, not even the faintest clue, to how he’d ever gotten to Kingsbury, but at least he had somewhere to go. At least he had somewhere to be safe. Somewhere to wait until Leverrier could find him and take him home.

That was how it had always been, after all. Leverrier finding him on the streets, and taking him to the church. Leverrier telling him, if he ever got lost, look for a bell tower over the rooftops. Find a church, and wait. _I’ll always find you, Howard._ Leverrier was the only one who helped them, always. The only person they’d learned to rely on. Saving them from their directionless, abandoned lives.

When they’d discovered Tokusa had magic in him, Leverrier was the one who had sent him to train with Madam Epstain at Link’s demand. When he’d discovered Link had been teaching Tewaku to bake, he assured Link a job with Cesari’s.

That had been meant for Tewaku, of course. He’d been teaching her so that she might have a future to look forward to, a trade she could employ to stand on her own two feet. He was her older brother, after all. In all but name, they were family, and Link’s priority had always been to ensure they’d survive.

Link was their brother, yes, but Leverrier was their father.

 _She doesn’t have what you have, Howard,_ he’d said to Link’s insistence that she should be the one given the position. _She could train her whole life, and study under the best chefs in the world, and she’d never have what you have._

She hated him for it. Link knew that for a fact. Knew it from the look in her eyes when he’d left, baleful reprimand that all his promises to them had been empty, and broken. That he would help them to the ends of the earth; but there he was, abandoning her.

Link stood before Kingsbury Cathedral, tilted his head back to look up at the formidable spires, and wondered if it was really such a bad thing that he had been lost. Without his help Tokusa was years into becoming a sorcerer, and without his help Tewaku had earned an internship with Johnny Gill’s Couture. And Link - he was in Kingsbury, by accident or design.

He looked at the cathedral, and wondered if he ought to step inside. Wondered if he should ask someone to help him, ask someone to find him, make himself an orphan at Leverrier’s mercy all over again. If he stepped foot inside, someone would surely help. But if he didn’t… what?

He had a trade; he was in Kingsbury. He’d passed more bakeries than he’d thought to count on his way to King’s Square.

All in a moment he was overcome with the absolute, selfish and entirely pragmatic thought of simply disappearing from Market Chipping. It would be as though he’d never been there at all. Tokusa had forgotten him, and Tewaku hated him, and Cesari’s had got along just fine before he’d worked there. Would it really matter so much to anyone if he never went back?

Link swallowed, thick and nervous. Nervous at the possibility of it all. Easily within reach. He could just turn around as though he’d never considered going back.

Before he could make so much as a decision either way, a flash of red spilled out from the corner of his eye and he stumbled back, faltered, stared.

_Blood._

He realised only a moment later that it was paint, seeping into the stone of the church’s facade, dripping sluggishly down the stairs. Thrown to splatter gruesome over the intricate bronze finishings and elaborately carved stone. Link stood, and blinked, trying to understand what he was seeing.

A girl stood on the stairs, an empty can hanging from her fingers - her fingers dripping with paint like blood, streaked across her cheek from where she’d brushed her short, dark hair out of her face. A sweet face, with violent, hateful eyes.

“Nice shot,” the boy behind her commented, blithe and scorning.

“Go on,” she said, light, teasing, her voice as sweet as her pretty smile and as steely as her sharp eyes.

“Hey,” Link called as though from a great distance, watched him kneel to pop the lid of another can with the flat of a knife. _“Hey,”_ he demanded, stronger, surging forwards to catch the boy’s arm as he wound back to hurl it across the cathedral. “You can’t do that!” he barked, rising to the ugly, derisive look the boy shot over his shoulder. He was taller than Link, and bigger, and Link didn’t doubt he wasn’t beyond wrenching himself out of Link’s hold and forcibly shoving him down the stairs.

“Let go of me,” he said like a warning, cold eyes glaring at Link from behind a dark fringe.

Even if Link had wanted to, he couldn’t keep his hand on the boy’s arm. The moment the command had fallen from his mean lips it was as though his skin had become an open flame beneath Link’s hand, felt like the delicate bones of his fingers were being broken by some unseen force ruthlessly tearing his grasp away.

It disappeared the moment Link pulled away, no lingering sensation to prove it had ever happened at all. Link looked at his hand; unmarked. Curled his fingers around his wrist.

_I’ve been trying to lift that obedience curse of yours for some time now._

Was it true, then? The way Link’s legs had been cut out from under him at Tyki’s command to _sit_ was no different from what he’d just felt. Link had thought, at the time, it had been some awful compulsion under the wizard’s control.

...Tyki?

“Want to paint something?”

Link snapped away from his slippery, melting-ice thoughts, dropped his untouched hand. “Pardon?” he asked, frowning at the girl.

She tilted her chin, a mean sort of smile sitting on her sweet lips. “You’re here,” she reasoned, holding out a third can, “so you might as well.”

“No,” Link stammered, stumbling back, just then realising that she was asking him to vandalise the _church._ “No, thank you, I need to g-”

“Do it, coward,” the boy sneered, his long, tight-tied hair flicking like a glossy, scornful fishtail.

And Link, well. He didn’t really have much choice, did he. Numb, he was forced to accept the paint the girl pushed into his hands. He looked down at it, swirling red and dark, dribbling down the edges. His hands were already smeared with it. His eyes fell closed and, heart thrumming panic in his veins, he breathed, “God forgive me,” before following their example and swinging the can to splatter the doors of the cathedral.

When he opened his eyes, he found he hadn’t painted the door at all. Rather, the cardinal who had just opened it, to see what all the commotion was about.

Scarlet paint dripped from his robes. He looked drenched in blood.

None of the four of them seemed to know what to do, exactly, for all of a moment. The empty can fell from Link’s red-stained fingers and he stepped forward, a desperate apology curdling in his throat. If he explained, if he explained himself and how they had forced him, and how he had gotten there, and that he needed to get home, that he needed Father Leverrier-

But before he could so much as get a word out, the girl had caught his wrist in a shockingly firm grip and was dragging him down the paint-slick stairs, yelling _“RUN!”_

All over again, Link found himself without a choice but to follow. All over again he was running without a drop of certainty that it was the right thing to do. Thinking back to Tyki and Allen, and how he’d run from them, Link wondered if he hadn’t acted somewhat rashly. He didn’t know where he was, didn’t know who to trust, and Tyki hadn’t been lying about the curse, at least. Certainly, it had already gotten him into more trouble than it was worth, and if he’d just stayed where Tyki had told him to sit and waited like Tyki had said he should wait, maybe he wouldn’t be caught between two people who took remarkable joy from vandalising hallowed ground.

Right then, Link realised he wanted to go back. In the same moment, he realised he didn’t know how. He hadn’t intended to go back; his impulse, at that point, had been to get as far away as possible as quickly as possible. Even if he were to find himself on the same street, by any stroke of the luck which was certainly avoiding him, he’d walk right by the door without recognising it.

So he ran, the three of them with hands coloured sticky with drying paint, and tried to find the center of his tempesting mind, tried to find some calm, tried to make some sense.

He was more than relieved when they led him down a drab, narrow alley a long, long way away from the cathedral, and slipped through a door into the back room of a beerhouse. Relieved to stop running, and to catch his ragged breath. Not so much to the fact he’d been dragged down an alley and into the back room of a beerhouse.

“Why did you come with us?” the boy demanded, as though he’d only just realised Link had been running with them the whole time.

Link sucked in a deep breath, righted himself. “She told me to,” he reasoned, pointed a condemning, red finger at the girl.

He scowled, and looked very much as though he wanted to call Link all manner of things, but settled for a derisive scoff and turned his back, went to an old, dirty sink to wash the paint from his hands. “You just do everything anyone tells you?” he sneered.

Link didn’t think he particularly liked him, but the boy didn’t seem to be overly taken with Link either. “I don’t think I really have a choice in the matter,” he sniffed, prim and defensive.

“Whatever,” he muttered; an eloquent book-end to what could hardly be called a conversation.

“How’d it go,” someone drawled from up on the stacked crates. “I see you picked up another stray,” he added, voice curled with cheeky amusement. Link looked up, tried to find his face in the shadows. Something about it felt terribly familiar, and it was only when he found a single green eye peering down at him, inquisitive and cheeky, that Link realised the make-believe memory he’d had of the library hadn’t been make-believe at all.

“Lavi,” he greeted, breathed on a quiet sigh of relief.

An eyebrow arched in his shadow-wreathed face, and he swung his legs over the crates to drop lightly with a familiar whispered rustle of turned pages. “I know you,” he said, peering intrusively close at Link’s face. “You were looking for Faerie Tales,” he recalled, uncannily quick. “Camelot’s little pet.”

 _“Pet,”_ Link repeated, indignant.

“Well,” Lavi reasoned, and seemed to roll his single eye, “he keeps you in his house, and only lets you out on a leash. What was I to assume? Speaking of, though,” he added, peering over Link’s shoulder as though expecting Tyki to materialise out of the shadows, “where is he?”

“I don’t know,” Link admitted, rolling his fingers against each other so the sticky paint crumbled and dropped to the floor. “I don’t know anything at all. All I know is that I know you,” he said, “and I don’t even know how I know that.”

“Curse coming in clutch,” Lavi said with a shrug, as though that made any sense at all. “He told you to remember who I was, and the spell he’s got you under right now didn’t even _touch_ that tangled up obedience of yours.”

“What spell?” Link demanded, looking up sharply. “Why do you know more about this than I do?”

“Why do you know more about him than _we_ do?” the girl demanded of Lavi, a cheeky sort of light in the challenge of her eyes when she jerked a thumb in Link’s direction.

“I know everything,” Lavi said as explanation to the both of them, light and easy and somehow not at all hubric. “And I can tell just from the look of you that he’s been trying to lift your curse. You smell more like him than ever,” he reasoned, wrinkling his nose and rubbing the back of his hand against it as though to illustrate a point. “Like you’re disappearing beyond where we can see. But, don’t worry,” he added, lighting up with a bright, crooked smile. “You’re coming back. I’m sure of that.”

“Coming back from _what?”_ the boy at the sink sneered.

“I don’t know, Kanda,” Lavi sighed, dramatic as a wearied parent. “Wherever it is Camelot came from. He’s not from around here, so we can’t read him at all. It’s cute,” he said, reaching out a hand to staunchly ruffle Link’s fringe, for which he ducked away with a scowl, “but a bit frustrating, when you’re used to knowing everything about everything.”

“I don’t know anything about _anything,”_ Link groused, flattening his hair and staunchly sitting himself on a crate. “As far as I know, I ended up in his house somehow and when I got away I was in _Kingsbury._ I’ve never been to Kingsbury!”

“We’ll help,” the girl chimed, sitting next to Link and butting her shoulder against his.

“No we won’t, Lenalee,” Kanda scowled, almost like a warning.

“Of course we will!” she reprimanded, unphased by his unwillingness. “He helped us out at the church, right?”

“You forced me to throw paint on a cardinal,” Link corrected, dull, looking down at the patchy, crumbling paint on his hands.

“See?” she challenged Kanda, as if Link had somehow agreed with her. “We owe him. So,” she entreated, bumping her shoulder against Link’s once again, gentler this time, and paired with a sweet smile, “what do you remember?”

“I don’t know,” he sighed, and let his shoulders slump just the slightest degree. “I didn’t think I knew who he was at all, so I ran away. But now,” he amended, trailed off with a small shrug. “I think I know him. I think I know him _well,_ but I still don’t know anything about him.”

“Did you lose your memories?” she asked, sweet eyes peering up at him.

“I don’t know,” Link admitted, brushing his gritty fingers across his brow. “Maybe. I don’t know. But I remember how he looks, now, and how he talks, and how he smiles. And I definitely think running away was a bit rash,” he added, wincing to admit it. “I’ve no idea how to get back, now.”

“Who says you’ve gotta go back?” Kanda muttered, sour, folding his arms across his chest and leaning against the far wall. “Maybe you ran off for a reason.”

“I ran because I didn’t know who he was,” Link corrected, heated. “I need to go back. I want to stay with him, and he-” Link paused, cut himself off. Swallowed down something he didn’t quite understand and looked down at his hands, paint caught in the creases of his palms, his fingers. “He wants to cure me,” he said, but he didn’t even sound certain to his own ears. Nervous, he dragged his thumb against the short, curved line beneath his fingers.

“Is that all?” Lenalee asked, leaning against him just enough for him to feel claustrophobic.

“Of course not,” Link defended, heat creeping up his collar and colouring his cheeks. Heart pounding. “But it’s not as though I remember anything else.”

“I think you’re lying, Howard,” Lavi taunted, slipping in to sit on his other side so he was effectively hemmed in between the two of them. “You can’t hide from me, remember? I know everything.”

“I doubt that’s how it works,” Link sniffed, indignant.

Lavi laughed agreement and allowed, “It’s more like I can smell a secret a mile off, and it makes me jittery if I’m not in on it.”

“It’s not a _secret,”_ Link insisted, cheeks hot. “I just don’t think it’s relevant enough to warrant explaining.”

“How about,” Lenalee challenged, “you explain, and we decide whether it’s relevant or not?”

Link could feel his heart pounding in his cheeks, his lips, and he shook his head. “No,” he refused, nervous eyes looking anywhere for somewhere eyes wouldn’t be watching him. “No, I definitely don’t think it’s important.”

“Well, hey,” Lavi chimed, “it’s not like you wouldn’t be getting anything out of it. It’s an exchange, right? If you tell me whatever it is you’re hiding, I’ll tell you what I can about where Camelot might be.”

 _“Might,”_ Link repeated, doubtful. But, _might_ was better than whatever he had - which was no hope at all of ever finding Tyki again in that enormous, twisting city. And Link wanted, then, almost desperately to go home. He could feel it like a bubble expanding in his chest, filling his lungs with the urge to scream. To call Tyki’s name as loud as he could, at the top of his lungs, and hope he’d come to find him.

It wasn’t as though he knew why, or how, or if Tyki Mikk or Camelot of Joyd was worth the hopeless need Link felt to see him, and be with him, and be close to him. But Link couldn’t very well say he _didn’t_ feel that, in good conscience. He wouldn’t be able to say, without faltering, that he most certainly absolutely with no doubt in his mind did _not_ care for Tyki - and that was less to do with Link’s fear of being helplessly alone in a city he didn’t know, so much as the simple desire he had for Tyki’s company.

Lavi was waiting, and Lenalee was waiting, and Kanda was looking very much as though he was trying his absolute best to seem as though he wasn’t waiting, and Link, cheeks burning, dipped his head so his fringe covered his embarrassed eyes and admitted to an audience of people he didn’t know at all, “I think I might be… in love with him, a little. Or, a lot,” he added, head swimming. “It sounds like a silly thing to forget, but it feels much more ridiculous to remember,” he defended. “I don’t know the slightest thing about him, but I’m already sure - I’m already certain that I’m definitely, absolutely in love with him, and I haven’t the faintest idea why.”

He touched a hand to his chest, something wound hot and tight and weird. Like he could feel the ground beneath his feet, but when he looked down, there was just empty air.

“What’s he like?” Lenalee entreated, leaning her shoulder against his. The sweet, kind smile she offered went a long way towards soothing some of the rioting panic in Link’s throat at having to say such an awful thing out loud, and he let it all slump out of him on a heavy, complex sigh.

“I’m not sure,” he said, rubbing his hands against his face. “I don’t know. I just… have this feeling,” he admitted, another wash of embarrassment pinking his cheeks, “that he’s incredibly kind to me. He’s very, um.” Link paused, wavered. Tried to place the familiarity of the girl’s shoulder against his and came up blank to the taste of a strawberry milkshake. “Tactile,” he decided, “I think. He’s always close, finding excuses to touch me.”

“And you two aren’t together?” she prodded.

“I don’t know,” Link vexed, twisting his fingers together as he wracked his sluggish memory. “He saved me,” he said, “and kissed me,” he added, cheeks pink all over again, “and I’m not entirely sure how or why I ended up living with him, but I suppose that could mean we might be, right?”

“Well,” Lavi taunted, “sounds like things are going well.”

“Yeah,” Link agreed, lacklustre, eyes low on his twisting hands, “I suppose.” It didn’t feel right, though. Despite that they were living together, and despite the way Link’s heart was trembling just thinking about him, and despite the fact Tyki had saved him, and despite the way Link remembered how his lips felt when they were pressed against Link’s, and against his jaw, and against his neck - despite all that, he knew they weren’t.

Something hadn’t fallen into place, or had gone bad. Sour milk, left to sit. There was a feeling of expectation, of anxiety. That there was something unfinished hanging over his head.

At that point, certainly, he more than regretted running out.

Link would recognise Tyki the next time he saw him, he was confident. They would know each other, and Tyki would put an arm around Link’s shoulders, or around his waist, or twine their fingers together, and walk him home. There was no expectation with the casual way he touched Link and he thought, more than anything, that might have been what made Link so willing to sink into his touch. That if he let his hand sit in Tyki’s, and leaned in against his chest, Tyki wouldn’t be demanding that Link kiss him on the next beat.

Not demanding anything of him. Link’s unquestioning obedience at his disposal, and all Tyki wanted from him was to be happy.

More than anything, he wanted to kiss Tyki. It all came in a wash of realisation that Link missed him terribly, and he was decidedly quite pleased at the thought of being marched home where they could have some tea, and Tyki could scold Link for running so Link could scold Tyki for letting him go in the first place.

“It’s sweet,” Lenalee murmured, “to be in love with someone.”

“I don’t know,” Lavi said, reluctantly doubtful. “I don’t know, with him. It’s frustrating,” he said, and laughed. “If I could see him like I can see normal people I’d know, but I can’t see him, so I don’t.”

“Either way,” Link announced, standing and brushing himself off, “I’ll be happy to go back. Can you show me the way, at least?”

“That, I can do,” Lavi confirmed, proud, and stood to match Link.

“We’ll go with you,” Lenalee determined, hopping up to join them.

“Will we?” Kanda asked, doubtful.

“Of course,” she countered, lightly scolding.

Link didn’t want to admit he’d be happy for the company. The last thing he wanted, right then, was to be swept up in another plot to desecrate the church, or the palace, or be forced to steal something, or follow someone he didn’t know down a dark alley into the back room of a bar. He supposed he had some luck with him, after all, if Kanda and Lenalee and Lavi were the ones who had found him - despite their uncouth manner of doing so.

“We can’t leave Timothy here alone,” Kanda grumbled, still reluctant to go.

“So we’ll bring him with us,” Lenalee announced, to Lavi’s emphatic whoop of excitement.

“Family outing!” he announced, thrilled, and ducked around the corner chanting, “Family outing, family outing, family outing!” to the bemused, reluctant groan of someone who’d been asleep - or, trying to sleep - and did not at all find himself thrilled at the thought of doing anything at all.

He came back soon enough, dragging a young boy along by the hand. He rubbed at his eyes, bleary and peeved, and groused, “Where’s Emilia?” before breaking into a long, open-mouthed yawn that he didn’t bother to cover.

“She’s out delivering orders, remember?” Lenalee chided, as gentle as a mother, or older sister, and knelt to pull the tattered scarf that was bundled around Timothy’s shoulders to cover his startling blue hair and the tattoo marking the center of his brow.

Link couldn’t help but stare. Surreptitiously, he glanced around at each of them. Neither Kanda nor Lenalee looked native to Ingary, he realised, and from there it wasn’t difficult to piece together why they were hiding in the back of a beerhouse - or even why they’d decided to vandalise the cathedral.

If they weren’t from Ingary, and if they didn’t have parents, there was little enough doubt in Link’s mind that they might have gone to the Church for help - the same way he had, and Tokusa, and Tewaku, and Madarao. If they had nowhere to go, and nowhere to stay, and no way to look after themselves.

Only, well. The Church wasn’t known to be overly fond of foreigners. Help anyone in need, indeed, but only if they were fortunate enough to be born in the right place, to the right parents. The brand of _help_ they offered to anyone else generally extended to having them removed from Ingary altogether.

Link thought of that cardinal, robes dripping with red paint like blood. He thought of Leverrier, and wondered if he would have turned away Lenalee and Kanda and Timothy, too. Link wanted to believe he wouldn’t, wanted to believe he was kind and generous and powerful - wanted to believe he was everything the Church represented in name, if not in action.

He thought about Leverrier taking opportunities for a better life out of Tewaku’s hand, and giving them to Link instead - forcing them on him, despite that he wanted them for her. Heart sinking, Link figured Leverrier likely wasn’t someone who could help them, or would. And despite that - despite that, they reminded him all too much of his own family.

Staunch, unfaltering, untrusting Madarao, who didn’t need anyone, and had left them as soon as he was old enough to join the military. Clever, snarky Tokusa, sly as a fox and quick as a viper, who took to sorcery like a fish to water. He looked at Lenalee and thought of Tewaku and thought, she might be the person Tewaku might have been, if Leverrier had let her become strong. Kind and firm and gentle, a soft heart lined in steel.

He looked at the three of them - Kanda, Lavi and Lenalee - and imagined that might have been his family, if he hadn’t interfered with trying to help them. If he’d simply let them grow by their own means, and not put their lives in Leverrier’s hands.

But he had, and they hated him for it, and that was what he deserved.

“Ready?” Lavi proposed, lifting Timothy up under his arms so he could sit on Lavi’s shoulders.

Link nodded, silent. Throat tight enough that he couldn’t speak for it.

“Let’s get this over with,” Kanda muttered, wrenching the door open and striding out into the crisp autumn midmorning.

 

* * *

 

He couldn’t find Link anywhere. He’d looked wherever he could think of to look, and he couldn’t find Link _anywhere._ Not at their bakery, for any lingering instinct Link might have had to go there, not at Gill’s, for any whisper of familiarity he might have had, not at the cathedral, for being a man of God, not at the Library, for that Tyki had _commanded_ him to remember the Bookman’s apprentice, nearly a month ago.

Standing in King’s Square, as lost as Link was without Link by his side, Tyki dragged both his hands back through his hair, sharp, agitated, and turned on the spot as though the heart he didn’t have would point him in the direction of the boy he was heartbroken for. He closed his eyes, struggled to tame his unruly breaths, tried to bring rationality to his panic.

Link was lost. He was vulnerable. He was in danger.

Tyki would find him.

He _would._

Eyes still closed, he followed the weave of magic which linked him to Allen. It was easier to do when he envisioned it; a thick, silk-thread rope woven and tied into a braid that bound them together. He felt Allen’s flicker of nervous inquisition - an unspoken, unphrased question of _have you found him?_

Tyki tightened his jaw, and receded back to himself. Link hadn’t gone back to the castle, then. Allen would be the first to tell him, if he had, and for the crush of horrible, terrible misery that had become his heart over the past half hour, Tyki couldn’t bear the morbid distraction of keeping himself in touch with it for more than a moment. What a stupid, idiotic thing it was.

What an irrational fool he was, to fall in love with Howard Link.

He scrubbed his hands over his face, dragged them down his cheeks and forced his eyes open into a severe scowl. Right then was not the time for any of that. Right then, he needed to find Link. And once they were home safe together, and Tyki had made them some tea - and once he had scolded Link for running off, and Link had scolded Tyki for letting him go - _then_ Tyki could indulge to sort out the mess his foolish heart had made of things.

Then, and not a moment sooner.

Tyki looked down at his palms, at his spread fingers; at the rings glinting on them. Silver, iron, gold. Palladium. He twisted the broad, saddle-dipped band off his index finger and tilted it to read the inscription Tricia had left when she’d given it to him, years ago.

 _Don’t be gone for so long,_ she’d said, mild and unfazed. _You disappear for months, and I start to forget your voice._ He’d almost killed her with worry.

Inside the band she’d had a jeweler carve the words she and Road had picked out. Simple, almost bland. _Come home soon._ Three words, and the way his niece hadn’t hesitated to throw herself against his side and press her face to his stomach when she saw him, in the flesh, for the first time in too long.

He’d made certain to stop by more often, from then on.

And now Link was missing, and it would be Tyki’s fault if he got hurt. It would be Tyki’s fault if he never came back.

It had only been half an hour - thirty-five minutes. Tyki would find him. He _would._

“Saint Anthony, Saint Anthony,” he muttered, a wry mockery of himself, as he threaded from the air a silk ribbon fundamentally identical to the one he’d made for Link, months ago, which he’d taken to wearing in his hair. As though Tyki hadn’t noticed. Fingers moving quickly, he wove the silk through the band of the ring and tied it off, held it clenched in his hand.

Eyes closed, he imbued it with a spell. Tied together with the threads of heartfelt desire woven through the inscription Tricia and Road had carved into the ring, channeled by the palladium it was cast in, and given direction by the ribbon he’d tied around it, the silk erupted into white flames streaked with every colour under the sun and moon - the same flames Allen burned with, because he was Tyki’s demon, and he was Tyki’s heart, and since the day they’d been bound together Allen’s magic had become Tyki’s magic.

When he opened his eyes and looked down at his divination, the flames crystalised and hardened, shaped into delicate wings as fine as gauze and sturdy as diamond. He unfolded his fingers, and a butterfly sat in his palm. Transparent wings caught the light of the sun and shattered it into rainbows, as though it were made of the same crystal panes that paved his Hallway.

It was, after all. Those crystal panes and those shattered rainbows and that Hallway had always been his way home.

“There’s someone who’s lost,” he told the spell sitting in his palm, “who needs to be found.”

In a flutter of fractured light it lifted off his palm and set a bounding, floating course away from King’s Square, the ring held delicate and careful in the clutch of its glassy legs.

Taking off at a run, Tyki followed it through Kingsbury’s winding streets and refused to let himself think that he might find Link in anything but perfect health. If he was hurt, it would be Tyki’s fault. If he was trapped, or lost, or scared, or stuck, it would be Tyki’s fault. It would be his fault, over and over, inarguably his fault, if anything at all were to happen to Link.

He was Tyki’s responsibility, after all.

Tyki had told Link to trust him, had promised no-one would hurt him, had given him every cause to believe that Tyki would be there to protect him. If Tyki failed him then - right then, in a moment where Link was truly vulnerable-

He didn’t know what he’d do.

So he refused to let himself think about it.

The divination led him back through twisting streets towards the square the castle’s door sat on, and when he burst through the swirling, lazy crowd he stopped for a moment, dread opening a hole in the bottom of his stomach. Had he done it wrong? Had he messed up the twining of threads to mean he wanted the spell to lead him back to Tricia and Road? A waste of time, a waste of precious, panicked seconds wherein anything - _anything -_ could have happened to Link, and all for a rudimentary mistake, all for another shortcoming of Tyki’s promise to protect him.

But the crystal butterfly didn’t stop to hover by the door; it fluttered across the crowd, bobbed over heads and hats and hairpieces, and Tyki followed its trajectory with something of a desolate hope until the tide of movement shifted, the current of people loosened for a moment - just a moment - and Tyki saw him.

Saw him looking at Tyki with wide, blood-brown eyes, lips parted speechless in an expression of overwhelming relief, and before either of them could do anything the wave of clarity was washed away and Tyki was running all over again, something burning in his blood like panic only so much sweeter, so much warmer, and somehow, impossibly, entirely more desperate. He shouldered his way through the crowd, heedless of those he jostled or bumped, followed the light-streaked flicker of his divination’s fluttering wings marking overhead where Link was moving towards him, and in the moment they met they each collided with relief, Tyki’s arms thrown instinctively around Link, lips pressed to his sun-warm hair, unable to breathe for the contortion of his lungs until he felt Link’s hands curl unerringly into the back of his shirt.

“God,” he sighed, emphatic relief, eyes scrunched closed, breath shuddering, feeling Link tremble against him. He hadn’t let himself admit the depth of his terror, hadn’t given form to the thousand worst-case thoughts that had crept dark, awful fingers around the edges of his panic, but in that moment - with Link in his arms, face buried against his chest, _safe -_ the relief that bubbled from his gut into his tight throat was enough to account for every thought he hadn’t let himself think. The dusty, warm sugar-and-cinnamon smell of him filled Tyki’s lungs, and he didn’t know how to make himself want to loosen his hold. “I thought I’d lost you,” he whispered, throat wound too tight with the reality of Link in his arms for him to manage to say anything more than that.

He felt Link’s hands curl tighter into his shirt, and he tucked his head firmer against Tyki’s chest as though to reassure him - as though to reassure them both that he was there. That they were there, together. “I’m sorry,” he said, sucked in a ragged breath that seemed to fill his whole slender body. “I’m so sorry I forgot you.”

“It was my fault,” Tyki vexed, reassured, promised. There would be no scolding between them, he realised, pulling away just far enough to see Link’s face, to tilt his head up to look at Tyki with a gentle hand on his pale, flushed cheek. Thumb tracing the worry beneath his tired, stressed eyes. “I shouldn’t have let you go,” he said, certain of it, worry and relief warring in his voice. “Are you okay?” he demanded, eyes caught on the hand Link brought up to curl around Tyki’s wrist, panic surging all over again at the dried blood coated and crumbling off his hands.

Before any more stress-hazed words could tumble out between them, Link had brought a hand to Tyki’s shoulder, had surged up on his toes and pressed his fervent lips to Tyki’s in speechless, desperate relief.

It all stopped for a moment. All the panic, all the delayed fear, all the thousands and thousands of things that demanded to be said despite that Tyki didn’t have the words to say them. All of it gone silent to the reassurance of Link’s lips on his. Kissing him, for all his broken promises were worth.

Link’s lips parted against Tyki’s, an unsteady breath dragged deep into his lungs, and despite that Tyki couldn’t bring himself to return Link’s kiss, even when his lips were on Tyki’s a second time it never once occurred to him that he should pull away. And when Link dropped from his toes to tuck his head beneath Tyki’s chin, hands curled into the front of his shirt, it never once occurred to him that he should do anything but tighten his arms around Link’s shoulders like a silent promise to never let him go again, not ever.

Tyki’s divination fluttered by Link’s shoulder, and over the top of his head Tyki saw the sharp, one-eyed grin of the Bookman’s apprentice; a grinning kid sat up on his shoulders, two others looked on - one smiling beautifically and the other the picture of stoic approval.

Tyki didn’t know how to thank them, even with a look. So he let his eyes fall closed and dipped his head to press his lips to Link’s silken hair. Breathed him in, that sugar and spice. Took a moment, and then another, to let it sink in. He was here. He was safe. He was in Tyki’s arms, where he belonged.

“Let’s go home,” he murmured, eyes closed, lips moving against his hair.

Link nodded against him, and didn’t make as though to move. Keeping him tucked against his side, arm around his shoulder, Tyki turned them towards the door to their castle. One last look shot over his shoulder, and the young Bookman blew him a kiss.

Tyki couldn’t help but smile, wry though it was. He’d owe them every spell he’d ever conjured, as thanks for bringing Link home.

Link… home.

He was home. He was home, and he was safe, and Tyki looked down to uncurl Link’s hand from the front of his shirt to look at the blood crusted on his skin. “Are you okay?” he murmured again, rolling his thumb over the back of Link’s hand so it crumbled and fell away in a rust-coloured powder. He frowned, and did the same thing again. It didn’t feel like blood should.

Link nodded against his chest though, unwilling to be parted from where he’d stuck himself against his side. “It’s paint,” was all he said, voice quiet, subdued. Meek, and somehow exhausted in the aftermath of his relief.

It hit Tyki then that, for him, panic hadn’t set in until he’d noticed Link was gone. Link had been high-strung with worry since the moment he’d taken Tyki’s potion, and for every second since. He pulled the door open, and walked Link inside, and his eyes fell on the spell sitting innocuous on the table. For all the fear it inspired in Link to put him through whatever had him clinging so desperately to Tyki’s side, he resolved to throw its contents back into the Hallway and be done with it.

Whatever potential it had to lift his curse, it wasn’t worth it.

It wasn’t worth the horror of losing him.

“Link!” Allen cried, lurching to the edge of the fireplace in his immediate relief to see him back again, safe, under Tyki’s arm.

Tyki’s eyes on Link, only on Link, he watched him waver a small, warm smile at Allen and breathe in, deep and careful with relief at being home.

“Here,” Tyki murmured, subdued, and sat Link in his armchair. Link’s hand lingered in his when he stepped away, and Tyki reassured him with a quiet, heavy smile. “It’s alright,” he said, only going as far as the kitchen sink to fill first the kettle, and then a bowl of water. He set the kettle on Allen’s flames, brought the bowl over to Link with a washcloth, lowered it to the table by the armchair’s side and knelt in front of him to dip the cloth in the water, wring it out, and gently take one of Link’s hands in his.

Eyes kept low, Tyki wiped the dried paint off his skin, carefully turned his hand over to dab at his palm, to clean where the pigment had caught in the creases of his fingers and wrist. A hundred thoughts were still running sluggish with dizzy relief through his mind, and desperate, horrible regret was chief among them.

His lips were warm with a lingering kiss, and he could feel Link’s eyes on him.

Helplessly gentle, he dried Link’s clean hand with the other end of the cloth, rinsed the blood-red paint in the bowl and took the other from where it sat lax on Link’s lap. Dragging the damp cloth over Link’s relenting hand, held tenderly in his, Tyki tried to find the words he needed to say.

Allen was silent beneath the warming kettle, and Link didn’t say a thing.

God, Tyki had been so desperate not to screw things up for Link, but really all he’d done was mess up. Told himself since that one time - the first time - that he didn’t want to kiss Link, but the lie of that was written in the way he’d let Link kiss him. Let Link kiss him, because Tyki couldn’t bring himself to pull away.

All that time he’d been trying to convince himself that Link was a child, that he didn’t know what he wanted, that he’d been through enough and the last thing he needed was the one person he could trust to help him putting him in situations he may or may not want to be in. He’d been so desperate to protect Link, and made himself believe that meant to protect him from himself, too.

And maybe it did or maybe it didn’t, but _lying_ to him? Breaking his heart over something as silly as Tyki’s lack of feelings when clearly those feelings weren’t lacking in the least?

Link deserved better.

He deserved better than Tyki, but he deserved better than to be lied to, as well.

He wasn’t a child - he wasn’t _fragile._ He was dependant, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t clever enough to know whether or not depending on someone was the same as being in love with them. It might be presumptuous, right then, to think Tyki hadn’t missed his chance at letting Link love him. But the least he could do - the least he could do for someone who _trusted_ him, empirically and without question, was be honest.

“Link,” he started, subdued, voice barely rupturing the gentle silence that had fallen over them, “I… was wrong. Before.”

He paused, jaw tight, and drew in a breath. Forced himself to swallow back any lingering reluctance. He turned Link’s hand, palm up, and dug his teeth against his cheek to the memory of overwhelming tragedy that had blinded him the moment Allen had shown him his own heartbreak.

“I thought I was doing the right thing,” he said, cleaning the creases of Link’s life line, his wisdom line, his love line, and explained, “I have too many regrets to want you to know what it feels like to make the same sorts of mistakes. But,” he amended, lips twisting into something of a wince at his own foolishness, “telling you I don’t _care_ about you is quickly becoming one of those regrets.”

“I never doubted that,” Link said, his hand soft in Tyki’s hold, relenting. Accepting. “It felt like wishful thinking, sometimes,” he admitted, fingers curling a little before relaxing again, “but I never doubted that you cared for me.”

“I wanted to do right by you,” he promised. Link’s hands were clean, but neither of them moved. The water in the bowl had turned a lazy shade of pink, and something about it all gave Tyki the feeling of being in a dream despite that he hadn’t dreamed in a long, long time. “I’m not very good at it, though,” he said, voice barely above a whisper, “sorry.”

“Twice,” Link said simply, his quiet voice cracking into a smile.

Tyki frowned, confused, and glanced up at his sweet face. Soft eyes, kind lips. “What?” he asked, very much lost.

Link’s eyes closed against his smile and he ducked his head to the quiet, helpless laugh that was trembling in his shoulders. “That’s the second time,” he explained, “that you’ve ever apologised to me.”

A frown furrowing between his brows, Tyki tried to reason, “That’s not true. Just outside, I apologised for-”

 _“Sorry,”_ Link emphasised, still smiling, and lifted his hands out of Tyki’s lax hold to rest them on his shoulders. “The first time you said you were _sorry_ was when you told me not to fall in love with you,” he recounted, his fingers fidgeting with the fold of Tyki’s collar - smoothing it out, and then slipping beneath it. “And the second time is, what,” he paused, that quiet, sweet laugh of his tumbling out, “when you’re trying to say you love me, too? For someone who claims he doesn’t care for them, your best apologies always seem to come when there’s a heart at stake.”

“Do you really keep an index of every word I’ve ever said to you?” Tyki tried to tease, still weak with relief.

“I think if my apologies came as rarely as yours did, and if I did as many things worth apologising for,” Link challenged, assertive in his defence, “you might take to counting them, too.”

A laugh stumbled its way past Tyki’s lips, surprised and endeared and still overwhelmed, and he lowered his head to rest his brow on Link’s knee. “I’m sorry, then,” he admitted through the laughter tumbling through him, because if he was going to admit he’d been wrong about that foolish heart of his, then he might as well admit to being wrong about everything else, too. “I’m sorry I let you run away, and I’m sorry I made you forget. I’m sorry that I haven’t managed to lift your curse, after all this time, and I’m sorry that I keep putting you through the stress of all my failed attempts.”

He felt one of Link’s hands brush through his hair - light, almost tentative.

“My promises must seem frivolous,” he said without lifting his head, a mocking smile twisted onto his lips, “for the way I go around breaking them.”

He heard a quiet breath fall past Link’s lips, felt his warm fingers curl delicate and coy behind his ear. “Stand up,” Link murmured, quiet. Tender. “An apology is all well and good, but the theatrics are a bit much, hm?”

Tyki buried a laugh against Link’s knees - silent and formless. A loose, huffed breath. He pulled away, sat back on his heels. Link’s gentle hand fell from his hair, traced the line of his neck, and settled to curl into his collar. “I can’t help my sincerity,” he said, an air of teasing defensiveness colouring his voice.

“On the contrary,” Link sniffed, looked imperiously down his nose at where Tyki was still kneeling before him, “I find you to be remarkably insincere.” Tyki arched a brow. “Particularly,” Link stressed, “when it comes to things regarding yourself.”

“I like my privacy,” Tyki ushered a paltry defence, lips definitely quirked in an amused smile.

“Enough that you want me gone?”

Tyki paused, looked up at Link. One hand curled into the collar of Tyki’s shirt, the other curled against the edge of his seat. Delicate. Loose. One word away from letting Tyki go; letting him slip out of reach. He parted his lips, wondering if something might spring to mind, and wondered at the last time Link had left him so speechless.

 _What_ do _you care about, then?_

Nothing had come to mind, so that’s what he’d said. _Nothing._

 _Maybe,_ he thought now, _just maybe, I care more about you than I do for myself._

“I asked the Bookman,” he said, not rising from where he knelt at Link’s feet, “about your curse, back in the Library.” Sincerity, was it? A funny thing. It was prowling, and unpredictable. Tyki prefered to keep it locked up, lest it choose to hurt him. “I gave him a spell,” he said, “and in return, I asked how to break it.”

Link’s fingers tightened, just barely. “What did he say?”

Tyki ducked his head on a laugh, quiet and deprecating and full of apology. “He said I couldn’t,” he admitted. Sincerity at its finest. “But I kept trying, despite that.” _I never wanted to admit that you didn’t need me, after all._ “So you can chalk it up to my own stupid pride, that I’ve put you through all this.”

“You can’t cure me?” His hand had yet to loosen, and Tyki felt hollow with the admission. Empty. Ransacked. He didn’t have much of anything, and perhaps lies were all he had. Now, not even that much. A pretense, for Link to pretend he needed him.

“I’m sorry,” he said, and it wasn’t any easier to admit than it had been the first time. An admission of being _less_ than everything he claimed to be. Apology at war with his stupid, selfish pride. “I’m really, truly sorry, Link.”

“Well,” he said, and Tyki didn’t dare glance up at his expression. “Well,” he said again, and seemed to be wrangling it into some stern sort of fact. Immutable and stoic. His fingers were still curled into Tyki’s collar. “That’s just the way it is, then.” He didn’t seem inclined to let go anytime soon.

“He asked if I’d been dreaming,” Tyki said, eyes on the glistening butterfly perched on the arm of Tyki’s chair - the chair Link sat in - with its coquettishly beating wings, “and I can’t help but think… if I’d never given my heart away,” he said, unable to make himself meet Link’s gaze, “and if I’d kept my dreams. I might be able to help you.”

“Don’t be stupid.” It was brusque and curt, and impossibly offended.

Confusion lancing through Tyki’s self-deprecation, he glanced up at Link. “What?” he asked, blinking through it to the stern scowl of Link’s brow, the displeasure of his tight lips.

“I said don’t be _stupid,”_ he reiterated, and huffed a sharp, exasperated breath before standing from the seat and brushing past where Tyki knelt to set the teapot on the hearth and fill it from the kettle simmering on Allen’s flames. “If you hadn’t given away your heart, you wouldn’t have Allen,” he said, closing the lid of the pot and turning the sand timer to count the seconds. “You wouldn’t have become Joyd,” he continued, back still turned to Tyki as he fixed sugar into their cups. “I might not have even met you in the first place. Whether or not you can cure me doesn’t define your worth,” he stated, crisp, and turned only to pin Tyki with an imperious scowl, “or what you’re worth to me. You can’t cure me,” he reiterated, unruffled, “and that’s just how it is. But, really,” he said, frown leveling into a reprimand, “does it change all that much?”

“So,” Tyki supposed, lost. He had no certainty to fall back on, no dishonesty. Ransacked of his lonely stoicism by Howard Link. “So… what?” he asked, pushing himself to stand.

“So, don’t think about it like that,” Link reasoned, flickered a glance at the timer. “A curse is a curse, and if it can’t be lifted then that’s just how it is. But all this time,” he said, turning to pour their tea, “you knew you couldn’t cure me, and still kept protecting me.” He stepped forward - close. Closer than he needed to be, to press one of the cups into Tyki’s hands. Almost chest to chest when he angled his chin up, looked at Tyki with those sweet, bloodstained eyes of his. Imploring. “So what has to change?”

Tyki lifted a hand, traced his thumb across Link’s cheek. Light. Imploring. “I want to save you,” he said, voice caught in a whisper. “I want so badly for you to be happy.”

“It’s possible to be cursed and happy,” Link said, mild, as though reminding him. A hand lifted up to match Tyki’s at his cheek, warm fingers turned warmer from sitting against the side of his cup. “I know,” he reasoned. “I have been. I am.”

Tyki didn’t say anything. Couldn’t. He’d taken that from Link too, hadn’t he?

“It’s not the end of the world,” Link said, tilting his cheek just a little against their tangled fingers. Against Tyki’s palm. “It’s not the end of anything. Regardless of circumstance,” he promised, as Tyki reached behind him to place the hot mug at the edge of the hearth, and did nothing to stay the half-step closer he took, “there’s nothing I want more than to walk through the markets with you.”

Tyki couldn’t help but kiss him. He really, really couldn’t. He was an angel of the highest calibre - generous, forgiving, ruinously sweet. An angel of the highest order, and Tyki couldn’t help but kiss him. For loving him and losing him and missing him and finding him, and maybe Tyki couldn’t feel everything his heart felt when Link’s lips softened and pushed against his, but he could imagine from the relief and the thrill and the long-awaited satisfaction that came with Link’s arms arching up to curl around his neck that it would be absolutely thrilled with Link.

And with him, he supposed, hands settling at the small of Link’s back. For finally acting out against his cowardice.

Link’s brow came to rest against his, the hot breath of his quiet, thrilled laugh tumbling past Tyki’s cheek. “Even without a curse,” he whispered as they stood there, foolishly, embracing each other in the center of the room, Link still with a cup of tea in his hand, “there’s nothing more I want than what I already have.”

“How absurd,” Tyki murmured, nose buried against Link’s neck. Breathing him in - the warmth of him, the sweet, enticing smell of him. “If you’re finally set on being selfish, you’ll have to want for more than that.” _For instance,_ he supposed, eyes closed to Link’s embrace, _I want you to stay, but I knew that already. For instance,_ he entertained himself saying, _I wanted to kiss you, and now that I have I want to keep kissing you, over and over and over, until my lips are dry and you’ve fallen asleep on my chest._

Link buried his face against Tyki’s shoulder, against his chest. “I’m a bit overwhelmed,” he admitted, another laugh tumbling uncertainly out of him. “I never thought to be greedy before, though I suppose I am by nature. I’ve never given much thought to what I want.”

“Are you of the opinion that it’s more than what you deserve?” he asked, a correction sitting ready on his tongue.

“On the contrary,” Link said, reluctant words buried beneath Tyki’s jaw, fingers clinging to his collar, “I’d accept anything given to me, and more. I’m already selfish to a fault,” he said. “I’d hate to think of what I’d become if I let myself start asking for things.”

“Honesty is a virtue,” Tyki considered, “so, if you’re honest about your vices, don’t they… cancel out?”

“You would know,” Link challenged on a laugh - light, this time, and charmingly charmed - as he unwound himself from Tyki’s arms and took his tea to the table, a challenging sort of look cast over his shoulder, “being a pious man.”

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Tyki said with a roll of his eyes, dutifully tailing Link. “Where I come from, God hates me for more reasons than I can count. He used to have people burn sorcerers alive, you know.”

“Where _do_ you come from?” Link asked, propping his elbows on the table and holding his tea between his hands, close to his lips where he could blow at the steam and sip at it.

Tyki smiled at him, sweet and gentle. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

“Well,” Link supposed, setting his tea carefully on the polished wood of the table, eyes on his hands, “I suppose, if we’re not going to be seeing your family any time soon… well,” he said again, and cleared his throat.

Eyes skittish, slipping away from Tyki’s.

“I suppose it’s something worth being selfish about,” he said as though he were trying to convince himself, shoulders set firm and straight with nerves. “I’ve been thinking, since losing my memories, and getting them back,” he said, eyes on the divination that had settled on the table by his finger. Still following him. Refusing to let him out of sight. “Can I… can we go back?” he asked, and swallowed, thick and nervous.

He reached a finger out to trace one of the butterfly’s large, glimmering wings.

“To Market Chipping,” he clarified, and returned his hands to his tea. “I know I shouldn’t - I know, but. I keep having these…” he straightened himself, set his jaw. _“Dreams,_ and I need to make sure, and - if I’m with you it’ll be fine, right?” he entreated, as close to pleading as he would ever get, wide eyes on Tyki. Wide, worried eyes. Red-brown like dried blood; still scared of snakes and the dark. “It’s a stupid, selfish idea,” he admitted, unfaltering, “I know it is, but I just… need to be sure.”

“Of course,” Tyki said, without reprimand or reluctance, and urged the divination onto his knuckles so he could take his ring from its delicate grasp. Its purpose fulfilled, it folded in and in and in on itself until it settled as a tiny diamond embedded in the palladium, offset to the side of the broad band to catch rainbows in its deep core. He took one of Link’s hands - his left, because he was left handed, and it had always struck Tyki as something quietly wonderful about him - and slipped the ring onto his index finger. “Of course we can go,” he said, and lifted Link’s hand so he could press a chaste kiss to the ring, weave his own thread of desire into those Road and Tricia had crafted. “As long as you promise to come home.”

Link’s smile was small and abashed and gorgeously sweet, and everything Tyki could cherish. “There’s no place I’d rather be.”

Sincerity was a beast, unpredictable and untamed, but in moments like those… she was kind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> honestly if you've read this far thank you so much for giving these two boys a chance i love them wholeheartedly and i hope throughout this story you've come to love them to!!!
> 
> Of course, if you couldn't tell from all the loose ends and complete lack of resolution on allens part, this is not where the story ends (however, i thought 100k would do for a 10k assignment....lol). there is a second part planned, where things get a bit more plot-heavy. plot being synonymous with neah and also sex. so if thats what ur into, stay posted lol


End file.
